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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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v 



CLEAR LIGHT 



FROM THE 



Spirit World. 



KATE IRVING. 



NEW YORK: 

G. IV. Carleton & Co., Publishers. 

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO. 



MDCCCLXXXIV. 






Copyright by 
KATE IRVING, 

1884. 



trows 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANV, 
hEW YORK. 



BeMcatxom 



THIS RECORD OF FACTS, IN MY OWN EXPERIENCE, IS AFFEC- 
TIONATELY INSCRIBED TO DEPARTED FRIENDS I HAVE 
LOVED IN OUR HOMES HERE, AND WHOM I AM 
TO MEET IN THEIR HOMES IN THE 
SPIRIT-LAND HEREAFTER, 

AND ALSO TO MY FRIENDS NOW LIVING ON EARTH, WHO, 

THROUGH SO MANY UNSATISFIED YEARS, HAVE NOT YET 

FOUND THE REPOSE FOR WHICH THEY ARE STILL 

LONGING, AND WHICH I FEEL SURE IS 

WITHIN THEIR REACH. 

AFFECTIONATELY, 

KATE IRVING. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. — To the Reader, 7 

II. — The First Night of My New Life, . . .13 
III. — My Investigations into the Spiritualism of 

the Jewish Scriptures, 18 

IV. — The Spiritualism of the Greeks, . . .29 

V. — My First Experience in Spiritualism, . . 32 

VI. — How I Saw the Immortals, . . . . 43 

VIL — How and When I Saw Departed Friends, . 46 

VIII.— As I Went On, 57 

IX. — A Dark Seance, 62 

X. — A Private Seance, 65 

XL — Ole Bull, the Great Norwegian Violinist, 

as a Spiritualist, 68 

XII. — The Spiritualist Camp-Meeting of 1883, . . 77 
XIII. — Mrs. Williams' Arrival and First Public 

Seance, 89 

XIV. — The Return to New York, . . . .98 
XV. — At Home, 100 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XVL— Spirit Tests by a Company of Savants in 

New York, no 

XVII. — How I was Guided to the " Forrest Home " 

by Lucille Western to Find Her Mother, 118 
XVIIL— General Garibaldi Returns from the Spirit 

Land, 125 

XIX. — Spiritualism at Cambridge, . . . .130 
XX. — The Uses of Spiritualism, . . . .135 
XXL — How My Experiences in Spiritualism Ex- 
panded, 142 

XXII. — Who was Priscilla ? 146 

XXIIL — Life and Occupations in the Spirit World, . 152 
XXIV. —What I have Learned of Our Relations to 

the Spirit World, 156 

XXV. — Infants in Spirit Life, . . . « .170 
XXVL — Councils in the Spirit World for Mundane 

Influence, 179 

XXVII. —Spirit Mediums, . . " . . . .188 
XXVIII. — Last Announcements from the Spheres, . 193 
XXIX. — Parting Words to My Friends, or Stran- 
gers, who are not Spiritualists, . . 199 



TO THE READER. 

Like everybody else, in Christian lands, I had 
always been taught that we live after we cease to 
live here ; and I thought I believed it. I hoped 
it was true, but I wanted to k?iow it for myself. 
Faith was not enough to satisfy me on so vast, 
so vital, so infinite a subject. • I read and lis- 
tened and wanted to believe, and I tried to be 
satisfied. But I could not rest, for I could not 
stop thinking. 

I might perhaps have found repose had I not 
been brought up in the chilling creed of the old 
New England theology. But I could not accept 
it. My heart turned from its fearful dogmas with 
indescribable horror. The thought that it might 
be true spread such gloom over the endless fu- 
ture life for me, and to so many dear ones, that 



8 TO THE READER. 

I dreaded the very idea of living forever ! To be 
helplessly immortal seemed a cruel doom ! 

With such an early education I could not have 
a very sunny childhood, and my girlhood was 
gloomier still. Gradually the light of the morn- 
ing of my life faded away and at last it seemed to 
go out. I was left in so deep a state of rayless 
gloom that existence was robbed of its charm 
and became a curse. 

In some sad and mysterious way, music, which 
had once entranced my soul, had become pow- 
erless even to soothe me, my passion for flow- 
ers was dead, and the warm embrace of loving 
friends, which once thrilled me with rapture, now 
chilled me with dreadful forebodings. Behind the 
gorgeous sunsets, with all their blended tints 
and hues of ravishing beauty, I saw leaden skies 
darkening into clouds of inky blackness. Every- 
where, in every scene my whole being was pene- 
trated with the awful consciousness that I was a 
helpless, doomed victim of " wrath in the hands 
of an angry God ! " 

How long this state of mind could have lasted 
without driving me to insanity I cannot even 



TO THE READER. 9 

now tell. I only distinctly recall one evening, 
while taking my solitary walk on the bank of the 
lovely stream which skirted the eastern border of 
our garden, that the thought flashed on me that I 
was going mad. My soul revolted from the idea 
with horror. 

I began to come to myself, and inquire if I 
had not cowardly surrendered myself body and 
spirit to the guidance of others, who had instilled 
into my mind a dreadful creed which no reasoning 
being could accept. 

As suddenly light flashed into my innermost 
mind, and I began to feel the tight cords that had 
bound my soul loosen, and a new and delicious 
sense of freedom came over me, to which I had 
from childhood been a stranger, I felt weak in 
this new life of reason, but I felt strong enough 
never to be so enslaved again. Something 
dreadful might happen, but I would not die mad, 
nor take one step farther on the road which had 
been leading me there. 

I looked off on the shining river, away beyond 
its green banks, over the enamelled fields, and still 
farther, where the wooded hills lost themselves 



IO TO THE READER. 

in the rosy sunset and the evening star was 
beaming in its silver light, and I felt a new in- 
spiration steal warmly into my heart. The fet- 
ters of a hard bondage fell from my weary limbs, 
and I looked around me expecting still to find 
myself enveloped by the blinding mists of the old 
superstition ! But those mists had dissolved, and 
gazing far up into the stellar universe, as I fell to 
my knees I cried out in an agony of implora- 
tion : 

il Oh ! if there be an infinite Father, let Him 
pity his poor child ! " 

I bore that answer to my prayer home with me 
to my chamber, which seemed anew room and a 
new world. 

I had long kept my feelings to myself as far as 
I could, and yet every one who knew me had 
noted how changed I had become since later 
years. My constitution, inherited and cared for 
so well, had not been impaired ; and no one had 
ever suspected how deeply or keenly I had suf- 
fered. 

But now they all saw — they could not help see- 
ing, nor did I think of concealing it — the emanci- 



TO THE READER. II 

pation from thraldom and suffering through which 
I had passed. Descending to the parlor later in 
the evening, I opened the long-neglected piano, 
and struck the plaintive air of Mrs Hemans' 
" Messenger Bird" : 

" Tell us, thou bird of the solemn strain, 
Can those we have loved forget ? " 

It was an early summer evening and all the win- 
dows were open. Neighboring friends dropped 
in, and we sang and played some of the old fa- 
miliar songs of other days, and everyone felt a 
cheerfulness that had not been witnessed there 
for a long time. The secret probably was known 
to myself alone. 

In parting for the night with my old home 
companion, who went to the stair with me to 
give and take the last kiss, she said : 

" Kate, you seem happier to-night than I have 
seen you for a long, long time. Are you ? " 

" I am, dearest friend. " 

"Bless God, my child; you do not know 
what a load you have taken from my heart." 

Blessed friend ! How little you then divined 



12 TO THE READER. 

the change that had come over me. Nor did she 
know it fully until long afterward ; for she had 
been educated in a still darker generation, when 
that terrible creed still held, but with relaxing 
strength, the intellect and conscience of New 
England in its merciless grasp. 



II. 

THE FIRST NIGHT OF MY NEW LIFE. 

It was the beginning of a new life for me. I 
had never fully known before what that wonderful 
word Life meant. It was years ago, and, much as 
I have learned since, I feel so incompetent to de- 
fine it now that I can only invoke the forbearance 
of the wiser of my readers, and the patience of 
my less experienced ones, while I lay before them 
as plain and unvarnished an account as I can give 
of the way I travelled from the desert land of 
doubt and misery to the peaceful country where 
I now dwell. 

It is not a long story, nor will it, I trust, be an 
unattractive one to the reader. I really have 
nothing so very wonderful, strange, or extraordi- 
nary to tell. Thousands could relate, and thou- 
sands have told stranger things than I shall, 



H FIRST NIGHT OF MY NEW LIFE. 

but my heart goes out with a warm desire to shed 
over the lives of others some of the blessed rays 
which have illuminated my own. 

I sat long by the window, glad to be alone. 
And yet I did not feel alone ; even the moonlight 
was full of living sympathy. Yes, even with me, 
who had so long been shut out from all glad 
thoughts of earth ; above all, from glad thoughts 
of the black, bewildering universe with which I 
had hitherto been wildly floating — for I knew I 
was floating, moving on somewhere, I knew not 
whither. 

The moon was sailing high and full in the azure 
heavens, and the words of Dr. Beattie, so famil- 
iar in school-girl lessons, came to me with a new 
and half-sad meaning : 

" Roll on thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue 
The path which conducts thee to splendor again ; 
But man's faded glory, what change shall renew ! 
Ah ! fool to exult in a glory so vain." 

" No ! " my soul, my whole self exclaimed ; " that 
cannot be so. Not to live hereafter ! not to live 
forever ! It cannot, cannot be. Thou, my immor- 



FIRST NIGHT OF MY NEW LIFE. 1 5 

tal, cannot die. But where shall I go, or whither 
fly when death shall set thee free ? " 

It was the first time the dread spectre of anni- 
hilation in all its ghastly hideousness had ever ap- 
peared before me. I recoiled from its presence 
as I would from the hiss of a serpent. 

I looked on the fair face of the moon again and 
I grew calm. Strains of music came floating on 
the still air. I listened to hear where they came 
from, but I could not tell ; all I could know was 
that the music surrounded me on all sides, and 
yet I thought everybody must hear it. It was 
different from any music I had ever heard. Some- 
thing like it had sometimes come to me in deli- 
cious dreams, from which I woke with tears as I 
opened my eyes to the morning sun and went to 
the weary work of another day's thinking. 

At last the music grew fainter and fainter, till 
it died away far up in the night sky. I did not 
dare to believe that it came from a higher, a bet- 
ter world, although I was sure it did not come 
from earth. I said to myself : 

u It makes me happy, and oh ! I am glad. 
Who knows but that, after all, there may be some- 



1 6 FIRST NIGHT OF MY NEW LIFE. 

thing in the wonderful accounts, now becoming so 
common, of celestial influences reaching earth's 
inhabitants, as we read of in the Bible and other 
books. If these things were true then, why should 
they not occur again ? If they did, is it impossi- 
ble now ? Have I not been taught to believe 
stranger things ? " 

I went to my pillow with no reluctance, for I 
had so long dreaded those sleepless nights that it 
was with strange surprise that none of the old ap- 
prehensions came back to trouble me. I lay so 
restfully I can find no name for it but peace, for 
it was more than rest, more even than " that peace 
of mind dearer than all." 

I had sometimes been considered imaginative 
and peculiar ; but I had never been accused of 
the weakness of credulity. In fact, I often erred 
in yielding too little, rather than too much, to 
the marvellous. This disposition to demand ab- 
solute proof of anything that did not commend 
itself to my reason often, perhaps, exposed me to 
undeserved censure ; but it saved me from the 
evils of superstition. Most of all had I been per- 
plexed, and very early, with the so-called miracu- 



FIRST NIGgT OF MY NEW LIFE. 1 7 

lous scenes and events of the Bible. No satisfac- 
tory solution of those matters had ever been of- 
fered to me — only I must believe. I could not and 
I did not. Everybody else said they did, and I did 
not disturb them. I had what satisfaction there 
was in what they called unbelief. What years of 
mental suffering I passed through before the 
true light illuminated my soul ! But the dawn 
was already breaking. My resolution to investi- 
gate fearlessly the whole subject for myself was 
irrevocably fixed. 



III. 



MY INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE SPIRITUALISM 
OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES, 

My mind had from that evening grown calm, 
and I began to investigate for myself the prob- 
lem, then commanding such general attention 
from many of the most cultured minds in Europe 
and this country : Do we live after death, and can 
the fact be demonstrated — not be made very 
probable, but proved? If so, how? For I said 
to myself, as myriads had said before all through 
historic ages, and as the learned and the uncul- 
tured seemed to- be asking in our times the same 
question, if the truth of immortality can be de- 
monstrated as plainly as any other scientific prob^ 
lem, is it not the most important fact for all the 
living to know ? 

Next in importance came the question, Can 



THE X JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 1 9 

the living hold clear and satisfactory converse 
with the departed, and in that way learn their 
condition in the spirit world ? 

This knowledge I was resolved to ascertain, if it 
took my whole life to do it. 

I had no guide to lead me, and must confess I 
was afraid to ask counsel from those I knew best. 
But I very naturally went to the Bible, for which I 
had been taught to feel the deepest reverence, as 
the sole authority given to man to follow — it be- 
ing, they said, " the only revealed will of God to 
the human race." 

I was more familiar with it than with any other 
book, and had been taught to accept it without a 
question of its infallibility. But I could not pos- 
sibly accept the interpretation which my teachers 
put upon it ; and so I had turned from it with in- 
credulity and distress. 

And yet a sense of terror crept over me at the 
thought of differing from the judgment of the 
learned and the pious friends and teachers around 
me ; and sometimes I felt that I would be " a 
castaway," a doomed one ! This dreadful night- 
mare hung over me even in sleep. I dreamed 



20 THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES. 

I was sailing over a dark ocean together with all 
the beings I loved on earth. But I did not dare to 
trust myself any farther on the vessel ; and at 
night I sprang overboard, and was not sorry 
when I saw that great ship sail on, and lose itself 
in the gloom, as I slowly and peacefully sank in 
the deep blue waters. 

But I had, on the evening I have described, 
fixed my purpose, and as the question of commu- 
nications to mortals from the spirit world was now 
uppermost in my mind, after breakfast I opened 
my Bible, and before I left my chamber I had 
read every account of spiritual visits and appa- 
ritions, in the Old and New Testaments. There 
was no one with which I was not as familiar as 
with a thrice-told tale. But I read them now, as 
I would for the first time any new book on 
record, simply to get the meaning. 

Beginning with Genesis, I found the following 
incidents : 

I. In the garden of Eden our first parents were 
in direct communication with the spirit world, and 
they talked familiarly with God. Man was a 
living soul — he came forth from the dust, and to 



OLD TESTAMENT SPIRITUALISM. 21 

the dust he must return. But it seems that his 
intercourse with the spirit world was not broken 
by the so-called Fall. 

2. When Hagar was driven into exile from 
Abram's dwelling, an angel appeared to comfort 
and guide her into the wilderness, and she became 
the mother, and her son Ishmael the father of a 
great and enduring nation. 

3. Later the Lord appeared to Abraham in the 
plains of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the 
heat of the day, and three men stood before 
him with a mysterious message. The patriarch 
treated these strange visitors with courteous and 
reverent oriental hospitality. These angel mes- 
sengers ate, and delivered their incredible reve- 
lation, and turned their steps toward Sodom, and 
u Abraham went with them to lead them on the 
way." 

4. Then we read that "two angels came to 
Sodom at even," and appeared to Lot, " and he 
brought them into his house, and made them a 
feast, and they did eat." The rest of the record is 
too dreadful to be told — every Sunday-School 
scholar knows the story. And while Lot lingered 



22 OLD TESTAMENT SPIRITUALISM. 

the angels sent to warn and save him " laid hold 
upon his hands, and upon the hands of his wife, 
and upon the hands of his two daughters, and 
brought them without the city, and said, " Escape 
for thy life ; look not behind thee, neither stay 
thou in all the plain ; escape to the mountains, 
lest thou be consumed." 

We all know the fate of the Cities of the Plain. 
Was not this the work of God, and were not his 
messengers executive angels in the form of men ? 
I could not help asking this question. They were 
in the shape of men. They talked like men. Lot 
thought they were men. The Sodomites sup- 
posed them to be men. They ate like men, and 
— vanished. Could they have been -anything but 
the spirits of former dwellers on the earth returned 
on the mission to take Lot and his family out of 
Sodom before it was destroyed ? 

5. King Saul was in trouble, for he was about 
to be assailed by the invincible hosts of the Phil- 
istines ; and he inquired of the Lord, who an- 
swered him neither by dreams, nor by Urim nor 
by Prophets. He then commanded his servants 
to search out one of the females who had a famil- 



OLD TESTAMENT SPIRITUALISM. 2$ 

iar spirit. There was such an one at Endor. 
But the king had already ordered all such persons 
to be put to death. But not to violate his own 
decree, he disguised himself, and taking two men 
with him went to the woman by night, and asked 
her to divine unto him by her familiar spirit, and 
bring up the person he should name. He de- 
sired Samuel, and the medium invoked his pres- 
ence. " An old man cometh up," she said. " He 
is covered with a mantle. And Saul perceived 
that it was Samuel." His doom was uttered by 
Samuel, and the words of the old prophet became 
true. 

I was deeply affected by this account. If the 
record was worthy of its place in the sacred 
Scriptures,- it was worthy of belief, and the facts 
appeared to be clearly stated. At the call of 
this woman who had a familiar spirit Samuel ap- 
peared in his own proper person ; for Saul knew 
him, and recognized him, and they held a conver- 
sation together, and it was of vital consequence 
to Saul. 

Could Samuel have appeared in his mortal 
body, which had gone to dust, or did he not come 



24 OLD TESTAMENT SPIRITUALISM. 

in his glorious, incorruptible, spirit body ? St. 
Paul says " there is a natural body and there is a 
spiritual body. It is sown a natural body, it is 
raised a spiritual body." 

I folded the book for a moment and asked, 
What does all this mean ? Everybody knew Sam- 
uel had died and been buried. Saul knew it only 
too well, and he was convinced that Samuel lived 
after his body had gone to dust. Did not Saul, 
and all who believed or witnessed the account, 
learn the great truth of man's immortality so 
abundantly preached, and proved by Jesus in his 
own person, ages afterward, when he lived and 
died and appeared again ? 

Biblical men say it was a miracle. That could 
not solve the problem for me. There seemed to 
be no doubt in those ages that the spirits of the de- 
parted came back and identified themselves and 
delivered messages to the living ; why should not 
such things happen now? 

I continued my search all through the Old Tes- 
tament, and closed it with a new but deeper im- 
pression of the predominance of the part which 
angelic agency and spirit inspiration had in the 



NEW TESTAMENT SPIRITUALISM. 2$ 

life and history of the Jewish people, and the 
preservation of the knowledge and worship of 
the only true God and the life to come. 

I then opened the New Testament, where I 
found the same agency of spirits pervading the 
whole system of Christianity. Heaven is every- 
where represented as the source from which all 
spiritual influences flowed, and in most instances 
they came through beings in human form, who 
used human language, and they distinctly an- 
nounced the authority with which they were 
clothed to execute their missions. They an- 
nounced to Mary and Elizabeth their approach- 
ing maternity and made those two mothers glad 
with a knowledge beforehand of the mighty re- 
sults which would come to mankind from the 
birth of their children. There had always been 
to my mind, as to every Christian child's, a charm 
over the birth of the Saviour ; more tender and 
touching than over the birth of any other of all 
the countless myriads of babes that have ever 
opened their eyes to the light or the sorrows of 
earth. And what celestial anthems ever greeted 
a child's coming ? And suddenly there was with 



26 NEW TESTAMENT SPIRITUALISM. 

the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, prais- 
ing God and saying, " Glory to God in the highest 
and on earth peace, good will toward men." 

The Transfiguration of Christ next arrested my 
attention. Taking three of his disciples with him 
into a mountain he showed to them his spiritual 
body in all its brightness and glory, and with 
him also appeared Moses and Elijah, and talked 
with him of his approaching decease at Jerusalem. 
The disciples saw all this ; they heard the lan- 
guage, they comprehended the whole scene, and 
they remembered it and left a clear account of it 
afterward. 

I had often heard all these spiritual communi- 
cations and angelic apparitions classed among the 
miracles, and they said that the angels were 
another order of beings, different from mortals 
or departed earth's inhabitants. But I found that 
some of the most notable and glorious of them, 
Samuel, Moses, and Elijah, were the most illus- 
trious characters in Jewish history. And further 
on I saw that at the time of the crucifixion many 
of those who were dead went into the Holy City 
and appeared unto the living, as Christ himself 



CONCLUSIONS. 2J 

did to his disciples on several occasions, eating 
and drinking with them after he rose from the 
dead. So, too, he was seen by upward of five 
hundred persons at once when he went away into 
heaven. I found also that all these things were 
not only accepted as facts by all the early Chris- 
tians, but that Christianity and its whole system 
of faith and worship rested on this foundation 
alone. It always has rested there, and it rests 
there to day. Hence I concluded, as I thought 
every impartial reader would, that these plain 
facts being universally accepted, there was no 
diversity in belief of continued existence of each 
soul in a spiritual body after death — of their re- 
ttirn fro7n the spirit world to coniniunicate with 
mortals, and the certainty of immortal life. 

Here for a time at least I was content to rest. 
I could now repose on what seemed to me solid 
ground. I had always, like all intelligent children, 
been drawn irresistibly to the story of the life and 
deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, and often wept over 
all he suffered in his blessed mission to save his 
fellow-men. I no longer allowed the dark and 
dismal sectarian theology in which I had been 



28 RESULTS. 

brought up to cloud every thought of life or 
death. In the exalted teachings and pure life 
of Jesus, and in his revelation and demonstration 
of immortality, I found enough to satisfy all my 
longings for a knowledge of an endless life to 
come. As He had interpreted God, I found a 
Father in Heaven, 



IV. 

THE SPIRITUALISM OF THE GREEKS. 

I HAD reached satisfactory conclusions on the 
subject of spiritualism as preserved in the Jewish 
writings of the Old and New Testaments, and I 
then proposed to follow up the investigation of 
the evidence of the same belief among the ancient 
Greeks. 

Here I had no reluctance to overcome, for the 
classics had made us familiar with the entire liter- 
ature of the spiritual beings whose myriad forms 
breathed life and light through the vast realm of 
mythology, and those spiritual beings seemed 
nearer and more real than the mysterious, far- 
off angels of the stern old Hebrew days. The 
celestial forms of the goddesses, nymphs, and 
graces were robed in more fascinating beauty, 



30 SPIRITUALISM OF THE GREEKS. 

and their presence distilled the aroma of the 
warmest sympathy with the denizens of the 
earth. 

To blind old Homer's spiritual eyes were 
opened the Olympian palaces of the gods, and he 
brought their innumerable hosts down to fix their 
homes among the dwellings of men from whom 
they sprang. Jove's delight was, like Jehovah's, 
" with the sons of men." In his dream Jacob 
saw a ladder stretching from earth to heaven, with 
clusters of angels continually passing either way. 
In Homer's vision heaven and earth were brought 
nearer together, and their intercourse never 
ceased. There was not a home without its wor- 
shipped divinity or its protecting spirit. Every 
grove, fountain, mountain, valley, river, bird, 
beast, or flower was carefully watched over by 
its protecting patron. Temples were everywhere 
erected to them, incense and sacrifices smoked on 
their altars. Socrates had his guardian spirit that 
never left him, and the fates of men and nations 
were revealed through mortal lips at the sacred 
shrine of Delphos. The Gods never turned a 
deaf ear to the implorations of their devout wor- 



SPIRITUAIJSM OF THE GREEKS. 3* 

shippers. Greece held no atheist, and a blas- 
phemer was put to death. 

Heaven's own inspiration breathed from the 
burning lips of Sappho, and guided the chisel of 
Phidias. It woke the thunders of Demosthenes 
and the deathless strains of Pindar. All Greece 
was a temple of spiritualism, and all Greeks were 
spiritualists. 



V. 

MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 

I HAD now completed my careful investigation 
of the historic evidence of the truth of spirit in- 
tercourse between mortals and immortals, so far 
as it is alleged to have existed in ancient times. 

I have given but a partial account of the au- 
thorities I examined, for my studies were by no 
means limited to the writings of the Jews and the 
Greeks. They embraced the wide field of what 
is considered authentic history, from the curious 
and astounding revelations by modern archaeolo- 
gists into the monuments of Egypt and the 
Asiatic nations, as well as the light thrown on 
these subjects by modern travellers. 

I had pursued these studies with the sole pur- 
pose of tracing the history of men's belief in 
spiritualism, in the sense I use that word in this 



FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 33 

work. It ended in establishing my unwavering 
conviction that, so far as the record goes, spiritual- 
ism is the foundation of all the religious beliefs in 
all the ages, and that the return of the dead is the 
only demonstration of the truth of continued ex- 
istence of mortals in life to come. 

In the very nature of the case it could not be 
established as a fact on any other testimony or 
in any other way. As the problem was fully 
solved in my own mind by the records of an- 
tiquity, my next inquiry related to modern times, 
and I continued my investigations under the 
clearer and fuller light of succeeding centuries 
down to the present age, when the judgment of 
the most learned and impartial savants of all en- 
lightened nations have laid the question to rest. 

But I was determined to go still farther, and 
learn the truth by personal experience, and thus 
remove it from the field of belief into the realm 
of knowledge. This was the last step in rational 
and philosophical investigation, and how I took 
it I propose to relate with what candor, clearness, 
and impartiality I can command. 

I had recently lost a beloved husband, whom 



34 FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 

I regarded as one of the noblest of men, and in 
whose sudden departure I had experienced the 
sorest bereavement which a woman's heart is ever 
called on to suffer. In the depth of my sorrow I 
sent for an old friend of our family, whose name 
had long been a household word by our fireside — 
a gentleman whom my husband had intimately 
known and admired as a man of genius and cul- 
ture, and whom he loved with an affection which 
he could hardly have cherished for any other 
man. 

As our interview went on, I suddenly ex- 
claimed in the agony of my grief : 

" O my friend, how gladly would I exchange 
all my husband left me, and be poor and struggle 
for a living, if I could only converse with him, 
and see him again, and hear his voice before I go 
to meet him ? I often heard you and my husband 
speak of these things. Do you really believe we 
can hold actual conversation with our departed 
friends ? " 

" No, it has long since ceased with me to be a 
matter of belief. I know that spiritualism is true. 
I believe multitudes of statements put forth on this 



FIRS T EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 3 5 

subject in every part of the world, for they ac- 
cord very much with my own experience ; but 
what I have seen and felt in my long experience 
I know y and I know it to be true as absolutely, 
and for the same reasons as I know any other 
facts in my life." 

"Tell me, then, do you think/ can know it 
too ? " 

" I have every reason to suppose you can. 
Millions of others have found it so, why should 
not you? " 

" How ? " I asked ; " what must I do ? " 

"Nothing but as a perfect stranger go with 
me to a medium whom I have known and had 
every reason to trust and respect, and saying not 
a word to explain your object, wait and see what 
will come. You need not even have any plan ; 
but wait till you get there, and then think and 
wish what you please. Choose your day and 
hour, and I will notify him by a postal-card. In 
this way there can be no collusion, for he will 
only get the notice. I shall say nothing more, 
nor will you." 

" That seems all best." 



36 FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 

" Now name the time." 

" This is Friday," I said ; " make it Sunday at 
eleven." 

" I will." 

The postal was despatched. At the hour my 
friend called, and with two lady acquaintances we 
drove to Mr. James V. Mansfield's residence and 
were seated. The gentleman entered, and he re- 
ceived us courteously and asked if we wanted a 
seance. He requesting that only one of the party 
should enter his seance-room at a time, I entered, 
when the folding-doors were closed. It was a 
beautiful sunny front room on the corner of Fifty- 
sixth Street and Sixth Avenue, on all sides of which 
hung portraits and landscapes, while in every nook 
and by-place, stood glass cabinets, which con- 
tained all sorts of books and relics and curiosities, 
which had been given or sent to him from friends 
and strangers from every part of the world. Their 
history I only learned afterward. My business 
alone on which I had gone was uppermost in my 
mind. I spoke to ask him what I should do. 

" Nothing, madam, but to sit at that little table 
in the corner there and take a slip of paper and 



FIRST EXPEDIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 37 

write any request you please to any departed 
friend whom you desire to hear from, and fold it 
and seal it as closely as you please. I will retire 
to this side room and come in, and we will see 
what comes. I cannot tell you till it is received. 
I promise nothing." 

He laid his hand on my folded and securely 
pasted scrawl, which contained several names of 
departed friends I wished to hear from. 

Very soon Mr. Mansfield began to throw off 
to me as I sat near him, written communications 
purporting to come mostly from persons I had 
called for, as well as from others I had not 
thought of for years long gone by. 

I was surprised, startled, amazed, and delighted. 
I recognized the handwriting of some throughout 
the entire communications ; of others only the 
signatures ; and in others still I recognized noth- 
ing till afterward. But in most of them I saw 
at a flash unmistakable proof of the authorship 
and presence of the chief and dearest friends 
whom my heart longed most earnestly to hear 
from. 

Besides all this, these messages were no com- 



33 FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 

mon or indefinite greetings, which might have 
suited almost any occasion, but they were sharp 
and special statements, which fitted in closely to 
facts in my own life which could only have been 
known to myself and the persons sending the 
messages. They were not, moreover, limited to 
past occurrences ; but they embraced an intimate 
knowledge of occupations and designs known to 
no mortals but myself, for they had not passed 
my lips. 

I will try not to weary the reader by recount- 
ing any considerable portion of the communica- 
tions I received through Mr. Mansfield, although 
they would show a record of facts which put it 
entirely out of my power to doubt the authenticity 
of their origin. They concerned too many persons, 
and enumerated too many incidents in my life 
which had faded from my memory until they were 
sharply recalled. 

Many visitors came whom I had neither called 
for nor thought of for years ; too many test ques- 
tions, which I asked, were accurately responded 
to by the only individuals who could have an- 
swered them ; too many inquiries which I put 



FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 39 

only, mentally were too quickly and clearly an- 
swered, and in every instance in plain writing 
which the medium handed to me over the table, 
while no word passed between us — that to doubt 
the genuineness and truth of the whole thing, 
would have been as impossible as to have ques- 
tioned my own existence in any other scenes of life. 

This first seance settled my conviction of the 
reality and truth of the intercourse of beings in the 
flesh with the departed, and I could, as a reason- 
ing mind, as easily have rejected it as I could have 
rejected the evidence of the death of my hus- 
band, or the birth of my only son. 

All these records I took away with me and I 
preserve them still. On scanning them critically, 
there were some which I could not make out at 
first, for though they were legibly enough writ- 
ten, I could not recall circumstances nor signa- 
tures, or I could not remember the incidents. 
But gradually they came back to me one by one, 
and I felt ashamed that I had allowed cherished 
names and tender associations, once so dear, to 
fade from my memory. I made it up to them 
afterward, and I shall never forget them again ! 



40 FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 

This intercourse, and above all this actual and 
practical communion with my dead friends, 
seemed too precious to be true. It was too 
good, too grand, too real to my soul to be ac- 
tually so ! 

I looked it all over. I scanned every word. I 
went so far as to search through my private escri- 
toire, where I had preserved my most precious 
letters and written memoria, and I found such 
confirmations that I felt it would have been cruel 
not to have accepted them as facts, had they been 
living. 

Could I go further, and not have done vio- 
lence to my very being? I sat alone and thought ! 
"No," I answered; "it is true, or nothing is 
true." 

I can never tell to another how much comfort 
came to my soul when I reached the full convic- 
tion that I had at last found substantial proof 
of the great fact — that I had solved the delightful 
problem of the possibility of the living conversing 
familiarly with the departed. 

I felt now that I was standing on solid ground, 
as firm as the solid floor on which I stood. There 



FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 41 

could be no better proof than what I had. It was 
enough for me ; all I could ask. 

I reposed peacefully. If I tried at my best I 
could hardly give a more truthful or accurate an 
idea of my convictions or feelings than I have 
given in this simple recital. Nor can I find words 
to express the higher feeling that filled my soul, 
when I went to my pillow that brightest night of 
my life. 

But I did not end here ; for happy as I was in 
thus moving into, to me, an unexplored land, I 
did not feel like an intruder, least of all like a 
stranger. It was a surprise, and even a succession 
of surprises. It was a wandering along the open 
scenery of a clear stream which in its meanderings 
beguiled me through its gentle passages to the 
far-off sea. 

It was more than peaceful — more than delicious 
— that sweet word which sums up so much that 
conveys what is pleasant to us. It was a new and 
a brighter outlook on to a summer land where I 
could almost see the homes of our loved ones as 
they dwell there, and with a sharpness of delinea- 
tion which could define that scenery with ac- 



42 FIRST EXPERIENCE IN SPIRITUALISM. 

curacy, even to the dwellers of that sphere them- 
selves. 

And yet it seemed to me that I could and 
should go farther. Something said to me : " Go 
on, for we can and will come nearer to you, and 
prove to you by undoubted physical proofs that 
we are immortal, as you will be. " 



VI. 

HOW I SAW THE IMMORTALS. 

I NOW leave for a time what may seem to trench 
on the improbable and perhaps on the more mar- 
vellous still. But to avast multitude who are now 
living, and to the innumerable who people the 
spirit realms, it will not be considered as any- 
nearer to the full reality, than the shadow which 
indicates the presence of truth. But they will un- 
derstand it as truth. 

Having arrived at this point of conviction — as I 
have described my progress, I wished to go still 
further. I feared I may have been guilty of temer- 
ity, but I could not repress the desire to witness 
positive evidence of the personal appearance of 
some of my departed friends y who should actually 
prove to me their presence in person, as plainly and 



44 HOW I SAW THE IMMORTALS. 

convincingly as they did while they were living ; 
and even in my own home. 

I had read of such appearances, and wished to 
get such a crowning proof of their real presence, 
as would entirely satisfy me. I knew I had had 
proofs enough of my intercourse with their minds 
and souls ; but I longed to see themselves unmis- 
takably, 

I had also longed (perhaps unreasonably) for 
such an exhibition so earnestly that I felt it would 
some day come. I could not think it unreason- 
able to expect it. I had no idea that anything 
wonderful, least of all anything miraculous, would 
happen to me. But I had become so convinced 
with a consciousness of the intercourse between 
mortals and the immortals, that it appeared only 
natural that some, at least, of my loved ones, 
should come to me, so real, that I could not but 
open my arms and embrace them. 

And at last, the door opened visibly to me, be- 
tween the two worlds. Plain enough to several 
spectators, but not quite enough for me. I must 
wait, and I was not impatient, for I really believed 
my time would come. During this interval, I felt 



HOW I SAW THE IMMORTALS. 45 

a peaceful composure, and even a more complete 
serenity of mind than I had felt for a long time. 

I went to my usual occupations at home, and 
attended to my many, and somewhat important 
engagements outside, with as much precision as 
ever ; only with a cheerfulness which was so new 
to me after the sore troubles through which I had 
passed. The dawn of a new day seemed to be 
breaking. 



VII. 

HO W AND WHEN I SAW DEPAR TED FRIENDS. 

On my arrival in New York from Paris, an old 
friend, well known in Spiritualist circles, Mr. John 
L. O'Sullivan, called on me. Knowing him to be 
a Spiritualist, I at once broached the subject and 
told him of my own experience. • He said : 

" Then so far you have never seen any of the 
materializing side of Spiritualism ? " 

" No," I said, " nor do I know anything about 
it. Do, please, explain the nature of it to me." 

" I can do better than that. I can take you to 
a materializing medium. When can you go ? " 

" Ah ! when can you take me? That is the 
only question." 

" Let me see," said he. " This is Friday ; why, 
to-morrow night, Saturday night, I will call for 
you and your friend, Mrs. Swift " (the lady who 



HOW I SAW DEPAR TED FRIENDS. 47 

accompanied me from Paris). "To-morrow night 
at half-past seven ; seance at eight." 

Punctual to the hour he arrived ; and we 
three started for Mrs. Williams' home in Thirty- 
fourth Street. On the way, I mentioned to Mr. 
O'Sullivan that I preferred he should not intro- 
duce me, or mention my name, as I was investi- 
gating, and wished to give myself full opportunity 
to test it. (They did not know me for two months 
afterward.) 

We arrived at the house five minutes before 
eight, and were ushered into the stance-room, 
where some fifteen persons were seated. The room 
was gas lighted, sufficiently to read by. Shortly 
after the medium entered, and said : " Friends, I 
presume you have come here to see and hear 
from your friends. It depends entirely upon 
yourselves what you may receive. If you give 
them good conditions, you will have good results." 

She then entered the cabinet, and that was the 
last seen of her that night by us. The room was 
an ordinary sized parlor, with a cabinet at one 
corner with a curtain drawn across, some seven 
feet high, and open at the top. 



48 HO W I SAW DEPAR TED FRIENDS. 

The medium invited friends to examine the 
cabinet before she entered it. Two strange gen- 
tlemen examined it, and pronounced it in all re- 
spects to their satisfaction. After the medium 
entered the cabinet, the gentleman who sat at a 
piano requested those present to join in singing 
" Nearer, my God, to Thee." 

After perhaps five minutes, the curtain opened 
and I, for the first time, saw what purported to be 
a spirit — a beautiful person. The lady who con- 
ducted the cabinet said: "This is Priscilla, one 
of the guides of the medium, who comes to bless 
the circle." 

After a few seconds she closed the curtain, and 
singing was resumed. 

Further along in this book, I shall explain who 
Priscilla is, as I subsequently learned. Next, the 
curtain opened, and a gentleman in citizen's dress 
appeared. The lady who conducted the stance 
said: "This is Mr. Prentice Holland, another 
guide of the medium, who remains in the cabinet 
to answer questions of a spiritual nature, that any 
one in the audience may wish to ask. Also, if 
the friends wish to go to the cabinet and address 



HOW I SAW DEPAR TED FRIENDS. 49 

him, he will be very happy to answer any question 
they desire to put to him." He addressed some 
questions, and two or three gentlemen went up 
and had quite prolonged conversation with him. 

The next spirit that appeared was one about 
sixteen years of age, who opened the curtain, 
throwing his arms out from it, and with a very 
boyish voice said : " Mamma ! oh, Mamma ! " 
He was instantly responded to by a lady in the 
audience who went up to the curtain, saying : 

" Oh, is that you, darling? " 

He threw his arms around her neck, kissed her 
on the cheek, loud enough for any one in the 
room to hear. Then he dematerialized and dis- 
appeared. 

The lady turned to the audience and said : 

" This is my son ; thank God he has been able 
to return to me." 

Next, a young lady came and beckoned to a 
gentleman in the audience, calling him to her. 
Taking his arm and walking about, she put her 
hand in his coat pocket, and took out a letter, 
then put it back again, and whispering something 
to him, disappeared behind the curtain. 



50 HOW I SAW DEPAR TED FRIENDS. 

Several other figures appeared, and were recog- 
nized by their friends. 

Then a gentleman came and beckoned to Mr. 
O'Sullivan, who went to the curtain where he held 
a conversation. Returning he said that was 
Mayor Wood. Of course I did not recognize him, 
never having seen him. 

There must have appeared that night eighteen 
or twenty figures, all recognized by some of their 
friends. 

But none of my friends came to me during that 
seance ; and, I must say, I felt somewhat disap- 
pointed. But as it was my first experiment, I 
had no right to expect anything. 

Mr. O'Sullivan said : " You must go two or 
three times, and I am sure you will be rewarded 
for your trouble by finding some of your dear ones 
come to you." 

"Well," I said, "I will see." But my mind 
was then very much confused. 

He said, " I hope you are not disappointed." 

" Oh, no," I replied ; " I am not disappointed. 
I shall give this a thorough trial, and, perhaps, a 
few weeks hence I may be able to talk more 



% 

HOW I SAW DEPARTED FRIENDS. 5 1 

about it to you. At present, I do not sufficiently 
understand it to give you what I would consider a 
definite answer." 

The following morning, Sunday, I got ready as 
usual about ten o'clock, not knowing whether I 
would go to church, or take a walk. But Mrs. 
Swift and myself sauntered out about the time 
the church bells were ringing. Finding ourselves 
on Thirty-fourth Street, I said : 

" This is near where the medium lives. Sup- 
pose, instead of going to church, we just go in 
here and see her ; perhaps I can learn some- 
thing." 

We found ourselves in Mrs. Williams' reception 
room, and in a moment the lady entered herself. 
I must say I was very much impressed with her 
appearance and conversation, in contrast with the 
tricks, trap-doors, and other surroundings that 
some mediums are said to have about them. I 
felt that she bore the stamp of truth in looks and 
conversation. I never mentioned that I had been 
there the night before. She did not know my 
name, nor that of my friend, nor anything about 
us. Then I said : 



52 HOW I SAW DEPARTED FRIENDS. 

" Mrs. Williams, can you give us a private 
seance to-morrow morning ? " 

She said : " Let us see ; what engagement have 
I for to-morrow morning ? " The lady who ad- 
mitted us, immediately answered : " None that I 
know of." Then she said: "You can have a 
seance at eleven o'clock." I thanked her and 
left. 

Punctual to the hour next morning, my friend 
and I entered the seance room of Mrs. Williams ; 
only Mrs. Swift and myself were in the room. 
The doors were locked, and the medium, looking 
at me, said : 

" You are a stranger; it is my custom to invite 
strangers to examine my cabinet. Have you any 
desire to do so ? " 

For a moment I felt that it would be an outrage 
to enter her cabinet for that purpose. But then, 
in order to satisfy a friend to whom I might men- 
tion it, I thought I would examine it. But I said : 
" I have no doubt about it myself." So my friend 
and I went into the cabinet. We found a solid 
wall on one side by a window which was boarded 
up, the front opening into the room ; carpet on the 



» 
HOW I SAW DEPARTED FRIENDS. S3 

floor, and solid under our feet. There could be 
no possible way in which anybody could get ac- 
cess to that cabinet save from the front where we 
sat. 

"Now," I said to myself, "if anything comes 
through this cabinet, it will have to be through 
spiritual agency, for no mortal can :" of that I was 
satisfied. 

After we were seated there some three or four 
minutes, a little childish voice proceeded from the 
cabinet and said : 

" Good morning, Mrs. Swift ; good morning, 
Mrs. Kate." This somewhat startled me. I 
looked at Mrs. Swift and said : 

" Good gracious ! how did she know our 
names ? " She laid her hand upon me and said : 

"Listen! she is talking." The spirit con- 
tinued : 

"Mrs. Swift, how did you leave everybody in 
Paris ? You remember the dear Count B ? " 

This somewhat surprised Mrs. Swift, as she was 
very sure that nobody knew anything about their 
affairs in Paris, or of the many seances they had 
had with the Count. I subsequently learned that 



54 HOW I SAW DEPARTED FRIENDS. 

the voice was that of little " Bright Eyes," the dear 
little Mexican girl, and one of the guides of the 
medium. 

A few moments elapsed when my friend ex- 
claimed, " Oh, John ! " Attention was drawn to 
the curtain. 

I turned my eyes toward the curtain, and there 
stood the figure of a man arrayed in purest white, 
with a black beard descending to his breast, falling 
half a yard or more in length. 

" Amie, my child," said he. I was surprised. 
I had never heard Mrs. Swift called by that name 
before. I subsequently learned that it was a pet 
name that John King had given Mrs. Swift in 
Paris during their many stances. They spoke to- 
gether for some time, and then Mrs. Swift said : 

" Come with me." And I walked to the cabinet, 
and stood in the presence of the first materialized 
spirit I had ever spoken with. I seemed to have 
lost all fear, and spoke to the spirit, and looked at 
him as though I had been accustomed to talk with 
spirits, and see them all my life. 

He said to me: " My child, I thank you for your 
many kindnesses to my friend." 



how i saw departed friends. 55 

I knew instantly to whom he referred — a friend 
who frequently attended seances with Mrs. Swift in 
Paris to whom I had rendered kindnesses. But, I 
must say, I was surprised. However, all such 
things cease to be a wonder, now that I so well 
understand spirit matters. 

Mrs. Swift, in all that se'ance, had five different 
spirits come to her, with all of whom she had been 
familiar in Paris. 

She recognized them all, had long conversations 
with them, and they seemed to be as familiar with 
her as I was, who had known her fifteen years. 

As yet I had none come to me, and I confess 
that I had begun to feel that perhaps I was for- 
gotten, when the curtain opened and a beautiful 
figure in white said : 

"Katy, this is Hattie!" 

I knew this spirit — knew the figure. It was 
that of my sister — my dear sister who had passed 
away some six years before. I was soon at the 
curtain conversing with her. She there and then 
said so many things that none but she and I could 
possibly have known, and spoken about, that I 
was at once convinced from her language, if from 



56 HOW I SAW DEPARTED FRIENDS. 

nothing else, that it was my sister, Harriet. She 
spoke of my husband, and said : " He is here ; he 
is speaking to you. Oh, do try and hear him." 

But my ears were too dull. I heard nothing 
but her voice. This was all the spirit friend, that 
came to me that forenoon. But I was firmly con- 
vinced that there was no deceit ; that what we 
saw were really spirits, and I fully determined, 
then and there, to investigate it to the end of the 
letter. 

This was the first of the many stances that I 
have had since, the results of which I intend to 
give further along. 



VIII. 

AS I WENT ON 

Having become somewhat familiar in two st- 
ances with the "phenomena," as they call them, 
I thought I would try another public seance, and 
see how they proceeded, so that I might compare 
my private with the public ones. 

At the next seance sat a lady whom I at once 
recognized, from her manner and language, as 
coming from Ireland. After the seance com- 
menced " Bright Eyes " addressed her by her 
name, and said : 

"Dear lady, your little daughter is here to- 
night." 

The lady asked : " Will she come to me ? " 

" Why, certainly ! most assuredly. That is what 
you are here for — to see her." 



58 AS I WENT ON. 

A gentleman asked her : " Dear Bright Eyes, 
what is my name and where did I come from ? " 

" Well," said she, in a very factious way, " it is 
a pity you don't know your own name, or where 
you came from. Perhaps we will find out by and 
by." Later on she said : 

" Mr. , of such a place, I shall visit you at 

your hotel, and open your ears." 

He said : " You have really found out my name ; 
how did you do it ? " 

" Why, by your mother giving me your full 
name. And your sister is here. They are all 
telling about your little peculiarities. They know 
them as well as you do yourself." 

Now to return to the little Irish lady whose 
daughter was announced from the cabinet. 

The curtain opened and a girl about sixteen 
years of age with jet black hair, rushing across the 
floor, put out her arms and said : 

" Oh ! dear mother." In a moment they were 
in each other's arms and sobbing like two children. 
It touched us all so much there was not a dry 
eye in the whole audience. A more affecting 
scene I never witnessed. The mother said : 



ft 
AS I WENT ON 59 

"Oh! thank God! thank God! that he has 
permitted me to live to see my child." 

"Friends," she said, "this little girl passed 
away when she was twelve years of age, at a Con- 
vent School in Ireland." 

Next appeared the brother of a gentleman in 
the audience, who had been a naval officer in our 
late war. He came in his full uniform, cap, but- 
tons and all. The likeness between himself and 
the Doctor, his brother, was so striking that 
several noticed it, and spoke of it, when the Doc- 
tor said : 

" Oh, yes, but I am a little the better looking 
of the two ! " 

"No," some one said ; "Captain Fred is the 
best looking." 

The Doctor at once walked up to the curtain, 
the Captain drew it aside, and stood facing the 
audience in full gas-light. The Captain touched 
his cap and said: " Friends, I was Frederick G. 

S in what you call life — for there is no such 

thing as death." 

Next came " Crowfoot," another guide of the 
medium ; the man who, in life, must have weighed 



60 AS I WENT ON 

nearly three hundred pounds. He stood six feet 
four ; while the medium was certainly rather an 
undersized lady, and by no possible means could 
she have elongated herself to be of the size of 
Crowfoot. He spoke to the audience and said : 

"Me come to bless and give strength. If any- 
body in the audience wish to go up and speak 
to Crowfoot they can do so. He is always very 
glad to talk to the Squaws, and the Braves." 

Nobody seemed inclined to go, but Crowfoot 
selected a lady from the audience who had a 
severe cough. He said, " Me want to relieve the 
sick." He said, " No fear of me," She turned 
her back, and he rubbed it six or seven seconds. 
It gave her a great deal of pleasure. She thanked 
him and returned to her seat. He said to her : 

" You all right now. Now squaw you all right." 

Next appeared Carrie Miller, the daughter of 
Mr. Miller (editor of the Psychometric Circular of 
Brooklyn). She walked to the middle of the floor, 
called up two gentlemen, friends of her father's, 
gave them messages, and the spirit in a few sec- 
onds dematerialized outside of the curtain. 

" There ! " said a gentleman who sat behind me. 



AS I WENT ON. 6 1 

" I came all the way from Canada to see this. It 
is my first appearance at any materializing circle ; 
but, after seeing what I have this night, I am not 
at all sorry I came, and I only wish that all the 
clergymen and Christians of my place could see 
what I have seen. Why, that young lady disap- 
peared into nothing." 

So every one felt, for we all saw it in plain light, 
and we could not all have been enchanted, deluded, 
or deceived. 



IX. 

A DARK STANCE. 

The next stance was to be a dark one. I re- 
ceived an invitation from Mrs. Williams to join a 
few friends in a dark circle at her house. This 
was another and to me a new phase in spirit mani- 
festations. I had never been in a dark circle, and 
could not really say, even to myself, how it would 
affect me. However. Mrs. Swift and myself ar- 
rived and found two or three intimate friends of 
the medium's awaiting us, say five in all. 

We entered the stance room, and Mrs. Williams 
retired to her cabinet. The doors were all locked, 
the lights turned out, and joining hands we 
awaited the result. 

Some four or five minutes elapsed, when the 
voice of Mr. Holland greeted us with — 



» 
A DARK SEANCE. 63 

" Good evening, children ; I am glad to meet 
you all.'* 

I sat at the end of the company next to the wall. 
I must say it was a novel experience to me, to be 
in the dark, waiting, for what the world terms, 
" ghost manifestations." While I was thinking of 
the novelty of my situation, I felt a hand on my 
shoulder, and a voice whispered in my ear : 

" I am here, darling." 

It was the voice of my husband, and I knew it. 
He stood by my side, with my hand in his for 
about fifteen minutes, conversing on affairs con- 
nected with our family. The night was very 
warm and I had a pocket-handkerchief with 
which I dried the perspiration on my fore- 
head. My husband took the handkerchief out 
of my hand, wiped my forehead with it, arranged 
my hair, and passed the handkerchief back to me. 
I took it out of his hand ; and, as I did so, his 
hand rested in mine. I held it a few seconds, and 
then after a time he was gone. 

All around me I heard spirit voices, and I saw 
white spirit lights passing before me. The next 
moment my mother's name appeared in illumi- 



64 A DARK STANCE. 

nated letters in front of me. Simultaneously my 
friends saw illuminated names passing in front of 
them. 

I think that night more than ten different 
spirit friends spoke to me. They seemed to have 
much more strength in a dark circle than in a light 
one. They could remain longer. Little "Bright 
Eyes " came out, sat by my side, took hold of 
my dress, and kissed me on the cheek, saying : 

" Miss Katy, do you know whose voice this is 
speaking to you ? " 

I answered : "I know you are Little ' Bright 
Eyes.' " 

That same night while singing "Nearer, my 
God, to Thee " she joined in, and we could hear 
her voice distinctly. 

To me, this dark stance was even more marvel- 
lous than a light one. Four or five spirits were 
talking at the same time, and as we all held hands, 
and the medium was sound asleep, or entranced in 
the cabinet, and no mortal could have entered the 
room, I went home that night more fully con- 
vinced of the truth of spiritual intercourse than 
in all my previous experiences. 



X. 

A PRIVATE STANCE. 

My next stance was a private one. There were 
only four of us ; Prof. J. Jay Watson being one of 
the number. He had travelled all over Europe 
with Ole Bull, and been his companion for some 
years. He had also received from him the very 
violin which he held in his hand that night, play- 
ing a favorite piece which he had dedicated to Ole 
Bull's daughter in Sweden. When the curtain 
opened, there stood Ole Bull himself, as natural as 
in life. His long hair was pushed back from his 
forehead, his shirt ruffled as he used to wear it, 
and, in every way, he appeared the perfect reflex 
of Ole Bull, as I had seen him. He looked toward 
the professor and said : 

" Votson ! Votson ! Votson ! " — three times. 
5 



66 A PRIVATE StANCE. 

He need not have uttered it but once ; for the 
professor has a very fine ear, and knew the voice 
instantly. They laughed and talked together in 
the Norwegian tongue I supposed, for at least ten 
minutes, one voice being as perfectly distinct as 
the other. When the professor took his seat, Ole 
Bull bowed to us all, said a few pleasant words, 
and disappeared from our sight. 

I would here say, that, during life, Ole Bull 
was a confirmed Spiritualist, and was convinced 
that his wonderful musical talent was aided by 
spirit influence, and that he was often inspired to 
play the beautiful strains that had so charmed his 
audiences. Professor Watson had not been a Spir- 
itualist, and could scarcely understand Ole Bull 
when he told him sometimes of these strange 
things. But he confesses, that he can now un- 
derstand more fully what was told him then, 
than he ever expected to be able to, for, not being 
a Spiritualist, he could not enter into the mat- 
ter as Ole Bull did, nor comprehend the theory 
of it. 

My mother-in-law then came. She was a very 
advanced spirit, with strong vocal organs as in 



A PRIVATE STANCE. 67 

life. She addressed us, saying: " Children, the 
day is not far distant when, if you give us the 
proper conditions, we shall be able to appear on 
the rostrum in bright daylight, and talk to you 
as I am doing now." 



XL 



OLE BULL, THE GREAT NORWEGIAN VIOLIN- 
IST, AS A SPIRITUALIST. 

Learning from Professor J. Jay Watson, the 
well-known American violinist spoken of in this 
seance, that he was a life -long and intimate friend 
of Ole Bull, I ventured to ask him to favor me 
with some account of the great Norwegian's al- 
leged belief in Spiritualism, and he kindly favored 
me with the following relation, which will doubt- 
less prove interesting to the reader : 

Respected Friend : Your esteemed favor is at hand, 
and I most cheerfully comply with your request to give you 
a few incidents connected with the life of the late Ole Bull, 
especially those bearing upon his belief as a Spiritualist. 
In all his marvellous performances he was aided and in- 
fluenced by spirit power. Mozart was his " beau ideal " as 
a musician, and the immortal works of that inspired mas- 
ter he considered sacredly beautiful. In rendering the 



OLE BULL. 69 

music of Mozart, his reverence for this great composer re- 
vealed itself in his performances, and invariably produced 
a deep impression on his hearers. Those who have made 
the master-pieces of Mozart the study of a lifetime, who 
have edited his works and dwelt upon the perfection of 
their instrumentation, have also said that Ole Bull's inter- 
pretation of those, especially of the adagios, showed a 
deeper and more appreciative understanding of their 
author's intention than had ever before been attained by 
any other master. Ole Bull used to say that " Mozart 
was his religion." To him there could be no more beauti- 
ful, no loftier expression of human thought and aspirations 
than he found in the works of this transcendent genius. He 
once remarked to me that the spirit of Mozart had been 
by his side constantly when he was playing the violin since 
his twenty-fourth year. 

I will here add that it was about this time that Ole Bull 
composed his famous " Mother's Prayer," which has touched 
many a mother's heart, and is probably the most widely 
known solo ever performed upon the violin. In speaking 
to me of this charming inspiration, he said, " I composed it 
because I could not help it." 

His love for the genius of Mozart was displayed in a most 
tangible manner at Salsburg, the home of Mozart. It was 
in Salsburg that Ole Bull proposed and gave the first 
grand concert for the " Mozart Fund," having at this same 
concert the supreme satisfaction of seeing Mozart's widow 
among his auditors. 

In the city of Bergen, in Norway, on February 5, 1810, 
Ole Bull first saw the light. On the picturesque " Lyso " 



70 OLE BULL. 

(" Island of Light "), a short distance from Bergen, is situ- 
ated the home of Ole Bull, which he built a few years 
previous to his demise. From the music-room of this 
delightful retreat the soul of the genial musician took its 
flight on August 18, 1880. As his spirit was passing away 
to the beautiful " Land o' the Leal," he requested a lady 
friend who was present to perform upon the organ Mozart's 
immortal " Requiem." This, his last wish, so touchingly 
beautiful and suggestive, was promptly gratified. 

Ole Bull's first visit to America was in 1843, n ^ s second 
in 1852, and his third visit was made in 1867 at my earnest 
request, through a letter which I wrote him while he was 
sojourning in Paris. Immediately upon the reception of 
my letter he made a hasty preparation and departed for 
America. Upon his arrival in New York he called upon 
me and greeted me with a genuine Norwegian hug, at the 
same time exclaiming, in his quaint broken English, " My 
dear Vatsohn, dot ish de hug of a Norwegian bear ; " to 
which I replied, " I should call it the hug of a Norwegian 
Bull." He laughingly exclaimed " Bravo ! " and immediately 
alluding to my letter he said, " It was that which has 
brought me again to America ; and," continued he, " I 
thank you very much indeed for the kind invitation. It 
came at a very auspicious moment." He then proposed 
playing gratuitously for my friends and pupils at my musical 
institution. His generous offer was of course accepted. At 
this entertainment were many prominent persons, among 
whom might be mentioned Major-General Robert Anderson, 
the hero of Fort Sumter ; Col. Rush C. Hawkins, of the 
famous " Hawkins' Zouaves ; " Andrew J. Graham, the 



OLE BULL. 7 1 

author of " Standard Phonography ; " Dr. O. R. Gross, and 
Mrs. Leah Underhill, the eldest of the celebrated Fox sisters, 
through whose mediumship the marvellous " Rochester 
rappings" had attracted the attention of the whole civilized 
world. Ole Bull and myself performed, alternately, several 
pieces upon the violin, assisted by Miss Annie A. Watson, 
the pianiste. During the music loud raps were constantly 
being heard in different parts of the parlor. As there was not 
more than one hundred persons present, and their attention 
being principally occupied with the music and conversation, 
it is doubtful if many, except a few who understood the 
phenomena, noticed the raps. The demonstrations, how- 
ever, of spirit power continuing to increase, Mrs. Underhill 
decided to retire from the parlor, when in a short time the 
rapping ceased entirely. 

A few evenings subsequent to this episode, this lady was 
kind enough to give Ole Bull and myself a sitting at her 
private residence. Although she had long before this 
ceased to act as a public medium, the experiences of this 
evening were very remarkable and highly satisfactory, the 
mediumistic powers of Mrs. Underhill still being as mar- 
vellous as they ever were. On another occasion, at her 
house, my little son Emmons H. Watson, a lad at that 
time about eight years of age, while quietly sitting in a 
chair, was moved by some unseen power, giving great delight 
to the little fellow as he gently glided over the floor, until 
he came in contact with a large dining-table at which some 
half dozen or more persons were sitting. " Papa, I wish it 
would do so some more," he exclaimed in high glee. All 
present witnessed this wonderful manifestation, the room 



72 OLE BULL. 

being fully lighted at the time. I will here add that it was 
in this very room that the Hon. Robert Dale Owen pur- 
sued his spiritual investigations while gathering material 
for one of his late works on Spiritualism. Dr. J. V. Mans- 
field and Mr. Charles H. Foster were the mediums whom 
Ole Bull most frequently visited. One evening a party of 
five, consisting of Ole Bull, his son Alexander Bull, Prof. 

Vincenzo B (a distinguished scientist of this city and 

formerly a member of the Italian Parliament), the Profes- 
sor's wife, and myself, visited Mr. Foster for the purpose of 
witnessing his marvellous powers as a medium. Ole Bull and 
his son received many remarkable tests, causing the latter 
to almost lose his self-control. Suddenly turning to Prof. 

B Mr. Foster said: " There is a lady spirit present who 

tells me she is an aunt of yours ; she carries in her hand a 

beautiful flower which she calls Margarita." Prof. B 

made no reply. Mr. Foster continued : " The lady tells me 
also that her name is Margarita, and that she was born and 
passed away in the village of Margarita." These three won- 
derful tests seemed to stagger the learned professor as he 
immediately confirmed facts which he said were known 
only to himself. Said the professor: " I had an aunt by the 
name of Margarita who passed away in Italy in a little 
village called Margarita. This village is little known even 
among the Italian people, for it is situated in a mountainous 
district far away from the busy world. My aunt was ' very 
fond of the Italian daisy, which in the Italian language is 
called ' Margarita.' " 

Several days after this remarkable experience I chanced 
to step into a Broadway stage in which Prof. B was a 



OLE BULL. 73 

passenger. Our conversation soon turned upon the events 
experienced at Mr. Foster's rooms, and I took occasion to 
review the incidents connected with the wondrous tests. 
Prof. B confirmed his previous remarks, simply add- 
ing that " it was an occult force the cause of which he 
considered incomprehensible, and as yet unexplained by 
any scientific research." 

Ole Bull emphatically pronounced himself a Spiritual- 
ist. Several of his friends and admirers, myself among 
the number, in response to an invitation of the great artist, 
one afternoon assembled at his rooms in the Fifth Avenue 
Hotel. After he had played as he alone could play when 
inspired by the magnetism of a few congenial friends, the 
subject turned upon Spiritualism. Most of those present 
were of the opinion that all gifted musicians receive great 
aid from the spirit world. One person present, however, 
took occasion to ridicule the philosophy in terms which were 
neither forcible nor elegant. Ole Bull, still holding his 
loved violin, and apparently lost in deep thought, suddenly 
raised himself to his full height, his large gray eyes flash- 
ing with indignation, and exclaimed, in a tone of voice decid- 
edly fortissimo : " Gentlemen, I am a Spiritualist ! " I need 
scarcely add that the offending culprit made no further at- 
tempt to ridicule the beautiful truths of spirit return. All 
present seemed awed by the energetic manner in which the 
great artist had given vent to his sentiments in five well- 
chosen words. 

An immense concourse of people had gathered one after- 
noon in Steinway Hall to listen to the delightful strains of 
Ole Bull's violin. The audience was composed largely of 



74 OLE BULL. 

ladies. Many noted persons were present, among whom 
I noticed the Hon. Horace Greeley, Hon. E. H. Stough- 
ton, Wenzel Kopta (the gifted violinist), several well-known 
pianists of both sexes, with a liberal sprinkling of musicians 
from the various city orchestras. As the lamented Gott- 
schalk once remarked : "It was an audience well calculated 
to inspire one's soul to its utmost depths." I had rarely 
heard Ole Bull perform so wondrously as upon this occasion, 
and in the language of another, " I was certainly impressed 
that afternoon as no man ever impressed me before. It 
was a most glorious sensation to sit in that audience and 
feel that all were elevated to the same pitch with myself. 
My impulse was to speak to every one as an intimate 
friend ; the most remote or proud I did not fear or de- 
spise ; in that element they were all accessible, nay, all 
worth reaching." This surely was the highest testimony to 
his great art and his great soul. At the close of the con- 
cert the ante-rooms were crowded with hosts of admirers, 
anxious to congratulate the great master upon the suc- 
cess of the entertainment. Dr. O. R. Gross, himself a fine 
musician, and a warm personal friend of Ole Bull, grasped 
him warmly by the hand, at the same time remarking : 
" My dear Ole Bull, there were many silent listeners 
in your audience this afternoon whom you did not 
see." " Oh, yes ! oh, yes! I know that," he said, "I 
know that ; but although I could not see them I could 
feel them all the same, especially when I was playing 
the i Mother's Prayer ;' and you know, dear Doctor, I 
think that there were many mothers in my audience to- 
day." Then like a pleased child he skipped around the 



OLE BULL. 7$ 

room, telling the incident to all with whom he came in 
contact. 

But I have already exceeded the limits which I had pre- 
scribed for my letter. I cannot close, however, without 
mentioning briefly the astonishing experiences which I have 
recently had in the seance-rooms of Mrs. M. E. Williams, 
of this city, undoubtedly the most wondrous medium of the 
present day. At the earnest request of several friends I 
took the famous old Cremona violin presented me by Ole 
Bull, and performed several evenings upon it in connection 
with my friend Dr. Gross, who presided at the organ. Lu- 
cie Bull, a daughter of Ole Bull by his first wife, a beauti- 
ful young lady who passed away several years since in Nor- 
way, materialized in plain sight of some twenty or more 
persons, took the violin from my hands, reverently kissed 
it, and returned it to me. On another occasion I was play- 
ing upon the guitar a piece which I had frequently played 
for Lucie during my first visit to her father at his home 
in Norway in 1868. Lucie again materialized, crossed the 
room from the cabinet to near the organ where I was sitting, 
and gently touched the strings of the guitar several times. 
This was again repeated upon another occasion, each time 
in the presence of not less than twenty persons. Ole Bull 
himself has twice materialized at Mrs. Williams' cabinet, 
talking familiarly to several old friends who were present, 
promising at some time in the near future to prove his iden- 
tity by playing upon his old favorite violin. I am aware that 
to multitudes the idea of a world in which beings exist as 
spirits without these gross bodies strikes them as a fiction. 
This is mournful, but not wonderful ; for how can men who 



76 OLE BULL. 

immerse themselves in the body and its interests, and cul- 
tivate no acquaintance with their own souls and spiritual 
powers, comprehend a higher spiritual life ? 

There are multitudes who pronounce man a visionary 
who speaks distinctly and joyfully of his future being, and 
of the triumph of the mind over bodily decay. This skep- 
ticism as to things spiritual and celestial is as irrational 
and unphilosophical as it is degrading ; for we have more 
evidence that we have souls or spirits than that we have 
bodies. As Longfellow so beautifully says : 

»* She is not dead, the child of our affection, 
But gone up to that school 
Where she no longer needs our poor protection, 
And God himself doth rule." 

Fraternally yours for truth, gratitude, and impartial 
justice, 

John Jay Watson, 
27 Union Square, New York City. 



XII. 

THE SPIRITUALIST CAMP-MEETING OF 1883. 

DURING the summer of 1883 the annual camp- 
meeting of Spiritualists was held at Lake Cassa- 
dagua, and I attended it and remained two weeks. 
It was the first gathering of the kind at which I 
had assisted. 

My friend Mrs. Swift and I stopped at a new 
and yet unfinished hotel, kept by Mrs. Alden and 
family. Knowing several of the mediums who 
were coming, I asked to see their rooms. 

"This," I was told, "was for Mr. Allen, the 
musical medium ; " the next was for Mr. Wat- 
kins, the slate-writer; and further on was Mrs. 
Williams', of New York, the materializing medium. 

Here I found the workmen putting up what 
they called "a cabinet," of plain pine boards, on 
one side of the room. I asked the foreman if he 



7% SPIRITUALIST CAMP-MEETING. 

was a Spiritualist. " No, ma'am ! By no means. 
We believe those people are all a crazy set. What 
do you suppose young Alden told me when he 
gave me the dimensions of this cabinet ? He said 
that the medium would have forty or fifty spirits 
in there. Now the cabinet is only a single board's 
thickness, and right under it is the dining-room, 
and if she brings in there any spirits I want to see 
them, and we boys are coming, and they can't 
play any of their tricks on us." 

I had examined the room, the floor, and the 
cabinet, and remarked: " I see no trap-doors, nor 
false doors, nor any chance for deception." 

" No, ma'am ; we know what we built. Yes, I 
want to see them come. If they can bring them 
into or out of this room, or this cabinet, I want 
them to bring out an old uncle of mine who died 
in California very rich, and I want to find out what 
became of his money." 

" I am afraid, my dear man," I said, " if you 
come for money and not from love, you may be 
disappointed ; for it is only love that brings our 
spirit friends." 

" Ah ! that's it, then ! " and his expression of 



SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 79 

incredulity was worth seeing. But he had some- 
thing yet to learn. 

Henry Allen, the Musical Medium. 

That afternoon I made an appointment with 
Henry Allen, to see a temporary little structure for 
a display of his alleged musical mediumistic gifts. 
It was a small building put up by the side of the 
hotel, in the shape of a sugar-loaf, enclosed with 
single plain boards, and with no entrance except 
by a curtain suspended at the opening where ordi- 
narily a door would be hung. Five of us friends 
entered. The curtain was securely closed, when 
we were asked by Mr. Allen to examine the room. 
In the centre was a little plain table and around it 
were twenty plain chairs. It was dark outside, 
but the room was fully lit up by two lamps, and 
we saw and examined five musical instruments ly- 
ing together on the table, viz., a violin, a guitar, 
a banjo, a zither, and a flute. 

We were seated and joined hands, I holding the 
medium's right hand and Mrs. Swift the left, 
when one of our party turned down the lamps, 
and we were left in perfect darkness. In this po- 



80 SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 

sition, with joined hands, we sat during the Avhole 
time of the seance. Not one of the circle could 
have moved a hand without being instantly dis- 
covered. 

When we became quiet, all the five instruments 
began to play in perfect harmony, first loud, and 
then gradually softer, till like music at a distance 
it became almost inaudible, when it returned as it 
had retreated, and at last sounded with its full 
power and ceased. 

This display we all judged lasted about fifteen 
minutes, filling us with amazement and delight. 
Mr. Allen then said that if each one of us would 
in turn sit by his side, and hold his right hand 
and wish mentally to have some particular piece 
played by the spirit band, he believed it would be 
done. 

Sitting as I still was on his right hand, I 
thought of a favorite Italian aria, not commonly 
known, and the band at once produced it in per- 
fection. Each of my friends followed, one by 
one, and mentally indicated her desire, and with 
the same result, when we could not find words to 
express our surprise and admiration. Some if 



SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 8 1 

not all of us had voices, and ears long trained, 
and were as perfectly satisfied as we had ever 
been with any instrumental music in the whole 
course of our lives. 

But the wonders of that evening were not yet 
to cease. Shortly after this the entire room 
seemed to be filled with spirits. My own friends 
came to me first, among them my own mother, 
who pressed her arms around my neck, and I laid 
my head on her shoulder and felt her caresses as 
tangibly as I ever did in her mortal life. This 
embrace and her loving words lasted many min- 
utes. Then as many as twelve other departed 
friends followed in succession, each calling his or 
her name, and asking and answering questions 
and demonstrating their identity. Some of them 
had never visited me before as spirits, but all 
proved their presence beyond the possibility of 
doubt. 

Then came the opportunity for each of my com- 
panions as she took her place by the medium's 
side and held his hand. They all had similar 
demonstrations made to them by their departed 

till nothing further seemed left for any one to de- 
6 



%2 SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 

sire. When these affecting scenes closed, and we 
had all resumed our first seats, the music of the 
spirits began again, and a great number of other 
pieces were played with corresponding matchless 
harmony and effect. 

As the music ceased, writing was heard, and 
each one had brought to and laid on our hands 
slips of paper, perfectly legible afterward in the 
light, one and all being messages of love from de- 
parted ones whose handwriting was clearly rec- 
ognized. The parting strains were then played ; 
our hands, which had not once been unclasped 
since they were first united, except for the in- 
stants when we had to change places, were now 
free ; the lamps were lit ; we saw all the five in- 
struments laying on the table where we first saw 
them, and bidding the medium a tender good- 
night retired to our rooms in the hotel. None of 
us attempted to describe the strange and overpow- 
ering feelings which these scenes had inspired, 
nor shall I. 

I afterward attended five or six other public 
seances of Mr. Allen, all of which were as satisfac- 
tory and some of them even more wonderful than 



SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 83 

the first. Many parties from neighboring towns 
and villages, and others from distant places, at- 
tended these seances ; but I heard no doubt ex- 
pressed by any of them, whether Spiritualists or 
not, when they came, about the genuineness of the 
phenomena presented, nor their convincing power 
over every candid and impartial observer. 

Watkins, the Slate-writer. 

This gentleman has the highest reputation, I 
believe, of any similarly gifted medium in the 
country. 

This phase of alleged supermundane power had 
always possessed for me a curious interest, and 
although it seemed to belong to a lower plane 
than some others, I was inclined to class it among 
that vast range of wonderful gifts which have in 
all ages been displayed by certain individuals, 
whose exceptional endowments excited amaze- 
ment rather than unbelief. Their origin was 
shrouded in mystery, but the facts were not de- 
nied ; to all observers the phenomena were be- 
yond dispute. 

I have chosen the word supermundane rather 



84 SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 

than supernatural, for I do not believe that any- 
thing exists within the boundless realm of the 
created universe which can properly be called 
supernatural. That epithet can be correctly ap- 
plied to the Creator alone. This idea is what im- 
parts to Humboldt's " Cosmos " and Job's sublime 
Allegory their infinite charm. 

In a universe of law there can be no miracle, 
as that term is commonly defined to be a violation 
of, or an exception to, law. All things are mys- 
teries till they are understood ; but the cosmos 
admits no miracle but its own creation — no in- 
solvable mystery but the existence of God — all 
else is nature. 

It seems to me, therefore, that in adopting the 
word supra (or super) mundane, instead of super 
(or supra) natural, a useful and even necessary 
change is made, for it not only corrects a great 
error, but removes the objection in many minds 
to the reasonable reception of Spiritualism and its 
philosophy. 

If I were attempting to write a dissertation on 
the philosophical basis of Spiritualism, instead of 
giving an honest account of my spiritualistic ex- 



SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 85 

perience and observation, I should appeal to my 
reader's consciousness and inquire if mortals who 
are too weak to prolong their lives here beyond 
their last breath, have not often involuntarily 
turned their thoughts to heaven for help which 
earth alone could not give ? That help which we 
all implore in moments of weakness or peril can 
only come from spiritual sources. That aspira- 
tion for strength which earth cannot give, is the 
foundation of all religious emotions, of all reli- 
gions, and of all Spiritualism. These sentiments, 
emotions, and yearnings are all natural to man, 
and are inseparable from his existence as an im- 
mortal being. 

But to come to our first stance with the slate- 
writer. He had arrived only the previous even- 
ing, but an engagement was secured for an inter- 
view the next morning. At 10 o'clock Mrs. Swift 
and myself called at his apartment in the hotel. 
After a courteous reception we glanced around 
the room, which showed nothing but the common 
furniture of a plain country hotel. After we were 
seated he handed to each of us a new double 
slate, with a damp sponge and a dry napkin. 



86 SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 

"Now," he said, "keeping your seats, please, 
take twelve slips of that note-paper, and each 
write the names of twelve spirit friends, and crum- 
ple each one separately into a pellet, and then 
throw the whole twenty-four into a pile together 
so promiscuously on the table that neither of you 
could distinguish one from another." 

He then turned his back on us and walked over 
to the window on the side of the room, and began 
talking with some one outside, and remained there 
till we told him our work was done. Then closing 
the window he returned to the table and request- 
ed us to point our pencils to, or with their points 
touch the pellets one by one deliberately. I be- 
gan and carefully touched five in succession, and 
at the sixth the pencil suddenly was arrested by 
no will of my own. 

" Now take up that pellet, madam, and hold it 
tight in one hand, and hand your slate to me with 
the other, and we will open and examine it 
closely, to see that there is no writing on either of 
the four sides. We need no pencil now." Clos- 
ing the slate he held it over the table, and in- 
stantly we heard a scratching, and when the noise 



SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 87 

-ceased he handed back the slate. I took it, and, 
as he requested, opened the pellet and read it. It 
contained only the words " Dear mother." Then 
opening the slate, I saw my mother's name clear- 
ly — and accurately spelled — written, which sur- 
prised me the more because of its being an un- 
usual name which not one in a thousand, prob- 
ably, who heard it pronounced would have spelled 
it correctly as she did. 

The same process I continued with my remain- 
ing eleven pellets, taking up only those at which 
my pencil stopped, and not stopping at any other, 
while it was impossible for either my friend or 
myself to distinguish one from another, since the 
whole twenty-four had been made exactly alike, 
only that neither knew the names the other had 
written. The same process was strictly adhered 
to by us both until the little pile disappeared, 
and not the slightest mistake had been made even 
in the minutest point. 

When these exercises were over, the medium 
passed under spirit control, and delivered to me 
a long message (Mrs. S. agreed with me that it 
could not have lasted less than twenty minutes) 



88 SPIRITUALIST CAMP MEETING. 

in the voice and manner of my husband, as un- 
mistakable to us both as though the whole had 
occurred in our own home in years gone by when 
we three often sat together. The demonstration 
was greatly intensified to me because much of it 
concerned my own personal affairs and circum- 
stances which could not have been known to any 
mortal on earth. I need hardly add that we left 
Mr. Watkins with feelings of admiration for his 
marvellous gifts, and of gratitude for his kind 
ministrations which will never fade from our 
memories. 



XIII. 

MRS. WILLIAMS' ARRIVAL AND FIRST PUBLIC 
SEANCE. 

On the day following our visit to Mr. Wat- 
kins, Mrs. Williams arrived, and we assisted in 
unpacking her trunk and preparing her cabinet. 
It amused us very much to see the curiosity of 
the workmen when they were allowed to help in 
taking out the curtains, and to notice the blank 
expression on their faces at not finding any 
masks, wigs, or any of the usual paraphernalia 
which are supposed to make up the principal 
stock in trade of travelling actresses, female me- 
diums, and mountebanks ! They were evidently 
disappointed as they returned to resume their 
work. 

That evening Mrs. W. held her first seance, 
which was attended by about twenty persons, 
most of whom had never witnessed a material- 



90 MRS. WILLIAMS' SEANCES. 

ization, and nearly all being strangers to one 
another. I sat next to a window, and Mr. Wat- 
kins, wife, and child were seated next to me. 

When all were still the curtains were opened 
by the spirit " Priscilla," who appeared and 
blessed the circle and retired to the cabinet, when 
" Bright Eyes" and Mr. Holland, two others of 
Mrs. Williams' " spirit guides," also greeted the 
assembled guests. Immediately after they had 
withdrawn another radiant spirit opened the cur- 
tains and earnestly beckoned to Mr. Watkins, who 
approached, and they held a conversation for sev- 
eral minutes. At its close this spirit drew the cur- 
tains wider apart, and taking Mr. Watkins' arm, 
walked with him to the middle of the room, and 
addressing the circle in a soft but clear voice, said, 
" I am his control, and the guide of his medium- 
ship," and instantly vanished from our sight 
where she was standing ! 

The next scene thrilled and delighted us all ; 
for as the curtains opened there stood the majestic 
form with which art has made the whole world so 
familiar, and the entire circle exclaimed, as with 
one voice, "Dr. Franklin/" The proverbial 



MRS. WILLIAMS' SEANCES. 9 1 

dress in every particular detail, as well as the 
grand and benignant countenance and graceful 
gesture of head, gently bowed and extended arm, 
all bespoke the unmistakable presence of the im- 
mortal Philosopher, Statesman, and Philanthro- 
pist. After a few moments of dignified and pleas- 
ing recognition of his reception, to my great 
surprise he turned and beckoned me to ap- 
proach, which I did with a strange feeling of 
reverence and awe, and looking beamingly with 
his large benevolent eyes as he moved up still 
closer to me, said in a clear voice : 

" Tell the old lady of this place, that we appre- 
ciate all that she and her deceased husband have 
done, and all that she herself is now doing for the 
cause of Spiritualism. Tell her this." (The old 
lady referred to was Mrs. Alden then in her 
eighty-seventh year. She and her deceased hus- 
band had been devoted spiritualists for thirty 
years.) 

I had hardly resumed my seat before the sage 
advanced a little, and courteously addressed the 
circle in these words : 

" I am here to prove the truth of Spirit return. 



92 MRS. WILLIAMS' SEANCES. 

When I was in mortal life I was a medium. God 
bless you all." 

It were vain to try to impart to the reader any 
adequate conception of the feelings of those who 
witnessed this scene, and heard Franklin's words. 

During the entire stance the light from the 
chandelier was bright enough to read by, and 
neither then nor afterward was any doubt ex- 
pressed of the genuineness of the manifestations 
by any one who was present that evening ; and 
among them were many who openly declared 
themselves not only sceptics when they came, but 
incorrigible disbelievers in Spiritualism — they had 
regarded it as the work of fanatics and impostors. 
But during the two weeks I spent there as a close 
observer, I did not meet one person, among the 
multitudes who attended these stances, that did 
not end in adopting the belief of direct inter- 
course between the living and their departed 
friends. And I will further add that, with un- 
usual facilities for observation in many countries, 
among enlightened circles of men and women, 
have I ever met with a larger proportion of indi- 
viduals apparently better qualified to examine the 



MRS. WILLIAMS 1 SEANCES. 93 

claims of any new subject of investigation than I 
met at Lake Cassadagua. 

I should be sorry to omit one or two other in- 
cidents which I witnessed during these seances, for 
one had a peculiar interest to all observers, and 
another to myself, for reasons which will be quite 
apparent to any reader who happens to remember 
the interest I felt in the workman who put up 
Mrs. Williams' cabinet and was allowed to in- 
spect her " tools in trade." He was to act as de- 
tective-in-chief for the exposure of "the hum- 
bug " for the good of mankind. He could not be 
" sold " ; he had built that cabinet ; he knew all 
about it, and he and the boys were coming. If 
Mrs. Williams could fetch up his dead rich old 
uncle, and tell what became of his money, why 
then there might be something to it — otherwise ! 
well, etc." 

I had something else better to do than to watch 
the progress of his search after his dead uncle, and 
the detective and his millionnaire passed out of my 
mind until at one evening seance I happened to 
see him seated near the door — from which, it oc- 
curred to me, he thought he could readily escape 



94 MRS. WILLIAMS' SEANCES. 

if anything fearful should happen. He watched 
everything going on with a kind of feline sagacity 
and patience, till at last, at the opened curtain, he 
saw a little figure looking directly at him, and 
beckoning him to come to her. The skeptic fore- 
man seemed to recognize the child ; he slowly 
rose and made his way through the circle till he 
reached the spot, and stooping to look closer, the 
angelic girl threw her white arms around his neck, 
and exclaimed. 

" Oh ! dear, dear father, don't you know your 
loving child ? " 

He raised her, and clasped her to his breast, 
where he held her for a few moments in full sight 
of the whole circle, when she suddenly vanished 
into thin air, and with an astonished, vacant look 
all around him, and a big bandanna handkerchief 
pressed to his face, he made his way as best he 
could back to his seat. There was (to me) so 
much of the serio-comic in the scene, that I 
pressed my handkerchief to my face to keep from 
laughing. Poor fellow ! If he had lost a rich uncle 
he had found an angel daughter. 

The other incident I alluded to happened at 



MRS. WILLIAMS' SEANCES. 95 

the second public seance of Mrs. Williams. The 
room was full. Not far from me sat a young man 
of engaging appearance, and near him an elderly 
lady dressed in mourning, and between them a 
lovely girl of some four or five years, whose rich 
flowing golden hair and beautiful face had excited 
everybody's admiration. Never having seen be- 
fore so young a person at such an assembly, I 
feared that something might happen to disturb 
the circle, and I afterward learned that others felt 
the same apprehension. But nothing occurred to 
justify our fears, and finally we had probably for- 
gotten the little one's existence, other marvellous 
scenes demanding our constant and absorbed at- 
tentions. 

At last the curtains were folded aside, and a 
transcendentally beautiful spirit appeared, clothed 
in purest white drapery, which floated around her 
delicate form, and casting her glistening eyes in 
the direction of the young man, the elderly lady 
and the child, earnestly beckoned them toward 
her. The three moved, and the group stood be- 
fore the spirit, when she cried in a tender but clear 
voice : 



96 MRS. WILLIAMS' STANCES. 

" Let me — Oh ! let me see my child." 

The young man (who proved to be its father) 
held the child up and set it on the table that stood 
in front of the cabinet near the spirit-mother, when 
she threw her arms around it, and in a sobbing 
voice said : 

"Oh! my own Ellen! my dear child! your 
mother — your own mother is here." 

On a wave of the mother's hand the father then 
took his daughter back to their seat, while the 
elderly lady remained conversing with the spirit 
who proved to be her own daughter. 

The whole scene moved the entire circle too 
deeply to be regarded as anything but a demon- 
strated reality ; for it was too actual and too life- 
like and tender to be either resisted or forgotten. 

When the circle broke up, several ladies and 
gentlemen gathered around the calm, bright little 
girl, and one of them asked her : 

"Who was that beautiful lady who spoke to 
you and embraced you ? " 

She replied, with an almost angry look, as she 
pointed to her father and grandma : 

" They told me mamma was dead." 



mrs. Williams' stances. 97 

" And is she not dead ? " 

" Why ! didn't you see her take me in her arms, 
and kiss me, and call me her dear little Ellen, as 
she used to ! and so papa and grandma mustn't 
tell me again that mamma is dead. And she 
promised to be with me and watch over me as 
long as I lived, and I know she will do it." 

The parties here spoken of reside at Jamestown, 
New York, and if they ever see this book they 
will at once recognize the accuracy of this state- 
ment. 

7 



XIV. 

THE RETURN TO NEW YORK. 

Our Villegiatura came to an end, and we were 
glad to be once more settled in our comfortable 
home. But I had by no means given up the idea 
of prosecuting my investigations into the great 
subject of Spiritualism, which had not mastered 
me — I was determined to master it. 

I did not expect to solve all its mysteries, nor 
perhaps any of them which involved this immense 
subject. But I was not appalled at the difficulties. 
I treated it as I had all other problems for investi- 
gation. 

I was after facts. I cared for nothing else ; 
though I must confess I had been far better re- 
warded in my search for them, in this so-called 
" mystic field" than I had been in many other 
departments of study — particularly in what are 



THE GREATEST OF PROBLEMS. 99 

classed among the ascertainable facts of physics, 
like astronomy, or the unsatisfactory problems of 
government, or sociology. 

I was seeking for light on the greatest of all 
problems — the life to come after our mortal life 
closes ; if there be an after life, what kind of a 
life will that be ? How can we learn something 
of all this ? Who can know except those who 
have gone there ? And amongst the innumerable 
myriads of the departed, who so likely to come 
a7id tell us as they who knew and loved us here ? 
And so through the almost endless range of ques- 
tions which every soul of earth asks. How can 
we get these questions answered except by direct 
communion with the departed, whom we know to 
have left their mortal bodies to the earth, and who 
at our invocation return to prove that we too are 
immortal ? 



XV. 

AT HOME. 

I COULD now carry out my purpose with freedom 
from interruption or disturbance, and I had abun- 
dant leisure for my work. Besides, I felt calmness 
of mind now to be able to bring to the occupa- 
tion my best powers for learning the simple truth. 
I was not conscious of any other desire, nor of any 
prejudice to sway my judgment or bias my feel- 
ings. I felt that for me the period of illusions had 
passed. Not that I had outgrown all susceptibility 
to romance, much less to the ideal, in which we 
all love to indulge ; but the fascinations of a mun- 
dane life had paled before the rising splendors of 
the enduring life to come. 

I at once glided gladly into the restful routine 
of home, with no cares except those which I vol- 
untarily assumed for others, whose needs I could 



AT HOME. 101 

supply or sorrows I might alleviate. And thus I 
rested, content to await what further developments 
might come. 

In looking over cards, notes, and messages that 
may have been sent in my absence from town, my 
eyes fell upon one of special interest. It was from 
a lady I had been very intimate with in Paris on 
my last visit. I called at her hotel, and we had a 
long talk about former times and all that had hap- 
pened to us since. I had known her to be a con- 
firmed Spiritualist, and a woman of exquisite cul- 
ture — a class so numerous in France but so rare 
in other countries. In our former intercourse she 
had indicated in a curious way her spiritualistic 
tendencies, but not clearly enough to be very 
well understood by one who could not respond 
very definitely to her shadowy belief. So our 
conversation had floated away from such themes, 
to be resumed if fortune should ever bring us to- 
gether again. 

I said, " I know now what you sometimes hint- 
ed at in those delightful times, and I fancy we 
shall understand each other far better if I tell you 
that since we parted, I have carefully investigated 



102 AT HOME. 

those matters, and I am as thoroughly convinced 
of the truth of Spiritualism as I am of anything 
else in the world." My friend rose and embraced 
me more warmly than when we had met a few 
minutes before, and as her fine face lit up with a 
brilliant glow she said, "Now, ma cJiere> we can 
talk understandingly. Tell me all." 

I traced my progress from darkness and doubt, 
to light and certainty, and related some of the 
more impressive scenes I had witnessed in spir- 
itual demonstrations. She was delighted but not 
much surprised, for her experience had long 
antedated my own in this sphere, and there- 
fore she entered with warmer sympathy into my 
own. 

In this case, as in so many others, my allotted 
space restricts my recitals within very narrow lim- 
its. She told me how rapidly Spiritualism had 
spread throughout France, and especially among 
the ranks of the higher classes, where savants 
treated it as much a settled science as any of the 
established propositions in the realm of demon- 
strated physics. 

" The philosophy and solutions often engage 



AT HOME. 103 

the keenest discussion, but the endless phenomena 
have ceased to be questioned." 

" But," I inquired, " how closely do the French 
phenomena correspond with ours of which you 
have read so much ? " 

" Why, Spiritualism must be substantially the 
same thing everywhere it is developed ; but with 
many exceptions (as for instance with the Ameri- 
can colony in Paris) the French Spiritualists seem 
to idealize the significance of the plain facts into 
something still more subtle and spiritualistic than 
Spiritualism itself. I hardly know if you can ex- 
actly take my meaning, for although I am told 
that I speak English pretty well, I feel more at 
home in my own tongue." «, 

She dropped into French (which I will try to 
render into English for the general reader) and 
continued with increased earnestness and fervor : 

" It is perhaps owing to the peculiar genius of 
my countrymen ; but while they are the most 
spirituelle of all peoples, they discard your term 
Spiritualists, and call themselves Spirites, and 
generally entertain the idea of the reincarnation 
of the soul in a new body after death," 



104 AT HOME. 

" Then are you a reincarnationist ? " 

" Not by any means — so far as I understand 
the term." 

"But what do the reincarnationists mean by 
that word ? " 

" They do not doubt the immortality of the 
soul, for they believe in continued life in other 
material and human forms after the soul has 
passed away." 

" But not that they change so that their identity 
is so lost to those who knew them that they could no 
longer recognize and greet them as old friends ? " 

" Not that exactly, perhaps. But rather that 
their immortality in prolonged existence will be 
in renewed physical life here." 

" For what purpose ? " 

■ ' They think that in this way untold millions 
of earth's mortals — especially those who pass to a 
spirit life in infancy — and others unnumbered, only 
slightly developed intellectually, will have a fur- 
ther opportunity for advancement in the spheres 
by such experience on earth." 

" I confess I see no satisfactory reasons or nec- 
essity for such a belief. I know that some such 



AT HOME. 105 

idea existed among the old Greeks and the me- 
tempsychosists, or transmigration of the soul into 
some other animal form. But I did not know- 
that such a notion had found a place outside of 
ancient mythology, and its dreamy superstitions. 
I have never found a hint of such a thing from 
any of my spirit friends, nor do I see any reason 
for it. I see no necessity for it. How can any 
soul once emancipated from the hard bondage of 
earthly conditions, ever desire to resume its for- 
mer servitude ? They may desire to enjoy the 
freedom of coming back to bring aid and comfort 
to their loved ones who are still struggling along, 
as they did, through the sorrows and troubles of 
earth, as we know they do return. But I hope 
these hallucinations do not prevail extensively 
among the French Spiritualists, least of all in your 
own mind." 

" Oh, no. I think that this life is the first stage 
of immortal existence ; that when we leave this 
state we advance forever. This is my mean- 
ing of the word ' Spiritualism.' But," she con- 
tinued, "I wanted to tell you of a strange thing 
which happened before I left France. I had gone 



106 AT HOME. 

to pass two weeks with a dear friend of mine, the 

Countess De N , at her beautiful chateau in 

Normandy, and as we drifted one evening into 
the marvellous, she related to me the follow- 
ing incident, which would be hardly worth telling 
except to show how often our spirit friends try to 
commune with us and have to go away disap- 
pointed. 

" Ten years had passed by since the occurrence 
took place, and although she knew all the time 
that I was a Spiritualist, she felt a reluctance to 
speak of it, for fear she might be considered weak- 
minded or superstitious ; and she might well feel 
sensitive on this point, for she was one of the lead- 
ers of the most brilliant circles of Paris. 

" ' But/ she said, * I can tell you all about this 
strange incident, and while you will never repeat 
it perhaps, you may solve the mystery, since you 
are supposed to understand such things. 

" ' Eh Men I About ten years ago the viscount, 
my husband, who always slept in my room, rose 
as usual at 5 o'clock in the morning at the sound 
of the alarm, for he had the habit of rising at that 
hour summer and winter, and retiring to the li- 



AT HOME. 107 

brary to begin his scientific studies. It now be- 
ing mid-winter, it would have been entirely dark 
had I not kept a lamp burning in my adjoining 
dressing-room, which cast a subdued light into 
my sleeping-chamber, but sufficient to reveal all 
objects distinctly. 

" ' Shortly after the count retired each morning, 
my femme de chambre always brought me a cup 
of coffee, and set it on the little stand at the side 
of my bed, and seeing I was awake she with- 
drew. 

l( ' I lay awake for some time longer than usual, 
and reaching out my hand for the coffee my eyes 
were arrested by the sight of a man sitting in a 
chair at the foot of the bed ; and then I recognized 

my granduncle, the Baron L , as plain as I ever 

saw him in life, and he had been dead and buried 
in the family vault for thirty years! It was so 
real that for a moment I forgot the lapse of time 
and everything else, and in my irrepressible joy 
at the thought of seeing the old man again whom 
I had so dearly loved from my girlhood, I rose in 
bed and exclaimed, " Oh ! how are you, my dear 
old uncle ! " 



108 AT HOME. 

'""Well! well, my dear child! I have come 
back to see you." 

" ' In an instant I recalled the past and asked : 
" Having been dead thirty long years, how can it 
be you ? and yet I know it is." 

" ' I was overwhelmed with terror. The great 
drops of cold sweat stood on my head, and I trem- 
bled in every limb. He was approaching closer 
to me. I pulled the counterpane over my head, 
and yet I felt him coming closer and closer to my 
head, when I must have uttered an agonizing 
scream, for it brought my maid to my bed, who 
bathed my forehead and wept in terror. " What, 
oh ! what, dear countess, has happened ? " 

" ' I gazed at the foot of the bed ; the chair was 
vacant : my uncle was gone and I had frightened 
him away ! Then a grief came over me of which 
I could not give you the faintest conception. I 
knew then, and I have known ever since, that it 
was no nightmare, no nervous fancy. I know it 
was my dear old uncle, and oh ! how many, many 
times have I longed to see him. But he has never 
come back.'" 

" Well," I asked, "can you tell me the rest ? 



* AT HOME. IO9 

There ought to be some interesting denouement to 
this story. 

" ' I may give it to you hereafter, for I am per- 
suaded that it will come.' But I left the countess 
the next morning, and sailed two days afterward 
for New York. Of course I could say something 
apropos on the subject. But I mention it only to 
show how anxious our departed friends are to re- 
sume converse with us, and how difficult they often 
find it to be understood when they do their best. 
But both they and we are making progress, and 
soon, I think, the two worlds will be drawn much 
closer together." 



XVI. 

SPIRIT TESTS BY A COMPANY OF SAVANTS 
IN NEW YORK. 

Before I come to the relation of some things 
which subsequently happened in my own experi- 
ence after returning to New York, I wish to speak 
of something which may possess a deeper interest 
to a larger class of readers in America and Europe, 
since they concern the spirit life of certain persons 
whose fame has filled the world. I will introduce 
a few incidents which, if the names were given, 
would command as much respect as those of Pro- 
fessors Wallace, or Crooke, or De Morgan, who 
fearlessly, years ago, pronounced their full adhe- 
sion to the system of Spiritualism as now adopted 
throughout the learned world. 

The gentleman of whom I speak, if I should 
give his name, would at once be recognized as one 



TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS. Ill 

of the foremost of living American historians, and 
one of the most admired and respected of scien- 
tific writers on the great social questions which 
are now commanding the earnest attention of the 
thinkers of our times. I invoke for his statements 
the same confidence that I know my personal 
friends will give to my own. I preserve his ac- 
count in his own words. 

" It was well known that Napoleon III. had for 
many years given time and attention enough to an 
exhaustive investigation of the phenomena and 
philosophy of Spiritualism, and that he was aided 
in this work by some of the most eminent savants 
of France and other countries, particularly the 
United States, where the study had been so early 
extensively cultivated. It was the habit of that 
extraordinary man to gather facts on any subject 
he was investigating, from every reliable quarter 
before he reached a conclusion. Having been 
myself engaged in a historical literary work which 
concerned the Bonaparte family, our correspond- 
ence had led to an unusually familiar acquaintance, 
and at his desire I arranged the best series of tests 
which I could devise, to solve or dismiss the 



112 TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS. 

doubts of any scholar or scientist who was dis- 
posed to examine one phase of the alleged proofs 
of intercourse between the minds of the living and 
the departed, without reference to any of the com- 
mon physical phenomena. 

" Some months before the trial was to take place, 
I had selected from an autographic collection six 
letters which most intimately concerned myself as 
well as the personal private history of the six wri- 
ters, and enclosing them in separate colored en- 
velopes exactly alike, without any mark, sign, or 
endorsement by which they could be distin- 
guished from each other, even by myself, I threw 
them together, and after an hour's, walk from my 
office I returned and enclosed them all in one en- 
velope securely sealed by my own seal ring which 
had no duplicate, when I laid them aside in a se- 
cret drawer of my safe where no one but myself 
could get access without my consent. 

" Several months went by, and I selected from 
among my intimate acquaintance, separately, six 
of the most thoroughly learned and scientific men 
in New York, all of whom I knew to have no be- 
lief in Spiritualism, and who could never have 



TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS. 1 13 

been persuaded, except by a personal friend, to 
act as experts in the business of determining the 
question whether the dead could satisfactorily 
prove that they could and would hold direct inter- 
course with the living. They understood that they 
were to sit as a jury of scientific experts, and bring 
in an impartial verdict according to the evidence. 
After much persuasion, each consenting to serve 
after being duly summoned, and neither knowing 
the names of the other five, I set about to fix on 
a medium for an appointment when we were to 
have an uninterrupted seance. 

"To accomplish this perfectly, I had to consult 
only one other person, and she the ' one altogether 
lovely ' to me as a ministering spirit — Theodosia 
Burr Alston, whose mysterious death at sea had 
excited the sympathy of the world, partly because 
she was the daughter of Colonel Aaron Burr, the 
Vice-President of the United States, and under 
whose fatal shot Alexander Hamilton had need- 
lessly fallen in a duel which was forced by the two 
angry political parties on the antagonists. This 
had given accidental notoriety to her name ; but 
being one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and 



114 TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS, 

lovely women in the world of her time, she had 
won the admiration and devoted love of all who 
knew her. 

" While I was sitting with the medium I wrote 
her a sealed note, and as the medium's hand 
touched it he began the answer. (I will explain 
that Theodosia was a blood cousin of mine, and 
although she had died some years before I was 
born, yet she must have known — as spirits know 
— my motives, since my object was to bring to- 
gether some of our blood.) The answer said : 

" * Dear Cousin : I will manage the matter. Next Sun- 
day I will bring the entire band you desire, and we will all 
meet you and your circle in this room, at eleven o'clock in 
the morning. Your affectionate 

" ( Theodosia Burr Alston.' 

" This was enough for me. I made the appoint- 
ment with the medium and hurried away to inform 
each of my experts of the time and place by letter, 
all of whom responded the next day. I awaited 
the result with confidence. No intimation of my 
full purpose had escaped my lips. No mortal 
knew it. My secret was known to only one being, 
and that was the beautiful spirit Theodosia. Even 



TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS. I IS 

the medium knew only of the engagement for the 
following Sunday. To avoid all mistakes, I saw 
all my six friends in the latter part of the week 
and renewed the appointment, and on Saturday 
I opened my safe and took the package from the 
inner drawer and carried it home. 

" At the appointed hour the next morning we 
all met, and we were all together for the first time. 
No one knew anything beyond what I had been 
obliged to say to each as a justification for my 
strange request. 

" I then explained the facts I have already 
narrated, and drew forth the package from my 
pocket, and only one person in the room could 
have surmised from mortal source the contents of 
that package. 

" The six envelopes were spread out on the 
medium's table, and he was told that one con- 
tained a document in the handwriting of a dead 
person, and I wished to see if the spirits of these 
people would, through his own hand, prove by 
their responses that they knew the contents of the 
envelopes, and identify themselves as being the 
authors of the letters. 



Il6 TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS. 

" It was agreed by the company that if all the 
conditions had been faithfully represented, they 
did not see how any collusion or deception could 
have taken place. They did not know the me- 
dium, but they knew me too well to suppose me 
capable of so stupendous a fraud in the sacred 
name of science ; and perhaps, after all, who knew ? 
At any rate they wouldn't judge in advance. 

"To the proof — allons / The six sat around 
in a crescent, and but an occasional word was 
uttered during two hours. The medium began by 
running his hand over the envelopes, and at last 
it was arrested and he commenced to write rap- 
idly. As a sheet slid from the table, one of the 
party pinned it to the first envelope and marked 
it No. I. Then the next pinned its answer to No. 
2, and so on till the entire six had been disposed of, 
and each lay before the half circle. Every man 
had one before him on the carpet. Then by 
agreement No. I was raised and torn from the en- 
velope and read aloud by the reader, and the an- 
swer read by his neighbor. This comparison was 
most critically made by all present, and there was 
but one judgment expressed — only one solution 



t 
TESTS BEFORE SAVANTS. 1\J 

to the problem proposed in the beginning — viz., 
that nothing seemed so rational as to accept the 
conclusion that, as the replies to the letters corre- 
sponded with the originals so closely and logically, 
as did the handwriting in every case, they could 
not fairly refuse to acknowledge the truth of the 
demonstration. 

" It is only proper to remark that it led in 
each case to further investigations with the same 
and other mediums, until all these gentlemen de- 
clared themselves unalterably convinced of the 
fact of direct intercourse between the living and 
the dead." 



XVII. 

HOW 1 WAS GUIDED TO THE "FORREST- 
HOME" BY LUCILLE WESTERN TO FIND 
HER MOTHER. 

Having been invited by Mrs. Williams to a 
dark circle with a few personal friends, among 
several impressive displays of remarkable spirit 
power, a most unexpected one came to myself. 
The room was perfectly dark during the entire 
seance, but each sitter was favored in her turn by 
visitors who seemed to make themselves fully 
known by conversation, which has always had a 
special charm for me, for it is so clear a proof of 
the intercourse of mind with mind through one 
sense alone — that of heari?ig. 

Close to my ear came these words: "The 
gates are no longer ajar, my dear Kate ; they are 
wide open." 



GUIDED TO THE "FORREST HOME." 1 19 

"Who is it that is speaking?" I asked. The 
answer came instantly : 

" Lucille Western. Don't you remember me ? " 
" Of course I do ; " and well I might, for we had 
been children together in Boston. 
Then after a pause she said : 
" Oh ! how I wish dear mother could know of 
all this." 

I asked, " Where is she, Lucille ? " 
" In the ' Forrest Home,' near Philadelphia." 
I then promised that I would go to see her as 
soon as I could, and with her warmest thanks 
Lucille withdrew. Certain engagements prevented 
me for some time from fulfilling my pledge, and 
I thought I would write a letter to Mrs. Western. 
But what could I write ? I had not heard or 
thought of her for years, and had I known the 
old lady was living, I could not have guessed in 
what part of the universe she was. But Lucille 
had told me, and I knew she always spoke the 
truth ; and besides, she must know all about it. 

But I delayed writing until shortly afterward, 
when I attended a light circle at Mrs. Williams' 
one evening, where an unusually large number of 



120 GUIDED TO THE "FORREST HOME." 

highly cultured persons were present, and all the 
conditions to insure success seemed to be combined. 

In the midst of the evening's stance suddenly a 
brilliantly attired and beaming form came forth 
from the cabinet, which was as instantly recog- 
nized as she had ever been in coming out from the 
side scenes of the stage, and many in the circle 
who had known her involuntarily exclaimed : 

" That is Lucille Western ; " and they were not 
mistaken — they could not be mistaken. Least of 
all could I, for she asked for me and we met, when 
she whispered in my ear, clearly : 

"In writing to mother, tell her that it was I 
who caused her to have that strange dream she 
had the other night. These words will prove your 
open sesame." 

That very night my letter was posted. I only 
signed it " A Friend/' but said I should shortly 
visit her. But before starting I had another in- 
terview with Lucille, who told me that her mother 
had received my letter and was anxious to know 
who could have written it. I assured Lucille that 
I should shortly make the visit. So I started for 
Philadelphia, with a lady companion, under spirit 



GUIDED TO THE "FORREST HOME" 121 

guidance, and at our hotel inquired for the " Forrest 
Home," but they could give me no information. 
But as railway agents are so apt to know about 
locations, I inquired at the Broad Street Station, 
where the ticket agent very obligingly gave me 
all the directions. We took the I P.M. train, and 
after a ride of thirteen miles found ourselves at the 
nearest station to the Home, which was reached 
by an omnibus in a mile and a half. Passing the 
gateway we found ourselves in a park of old oaks, 
in which stood an imposing stone mansion, which 
with its surroundings reminded me of an English 
baronial seat. At the door we inquired for Mrs. 
Western with as much confidence as though I had 
followed a mortal instead of a spirit guide. 

" Yes, ladies; if you will step into the parlor I 
will call her." 

I soon heard a familiar voice — although so many 
years had gone by. 

An elderly woman entered, attired in the sub- 
dued but very tasteful dress of an accustomed 
lady, and I introduced myself as coming at the 
request of her daughter Lucille. 

" Yes!" she said; "but you know Lucille is 



122 GUIDED TO THE "FORREST HOME." 

no longer among the living. Oh ! I begin to see. 
You must be my unknown correspondent who 
spoke of a dream. Yes, I did have a very won- 
derful dream, and I was a good deal perplexed 
about it. I must tell you of it." 

She did; and we soon began to understand 
each other better. I then said, " Don't you recol- 
lect Kate ? I am she." 

" You really are she ? " 

" I am," I replied, " and your daughter Lucille 
is still living, and I have conversed with her prob- 
ably twenty times within two months. The last 
time she told me to say that she caused you to have 
that strange dream, and to tell you that it would be 
a very great comfort to her if you could only know 
that she was with you, and loved you better if 
possible than ever, and that if she could have an 
opportunity she would prove it all to you. Now, 
my dear Mrs. Western, as I have been guided 
here only by the spirit of our dear Lucille, and 
have brought all these proofs to you, pray tell me 
what you think of it ? " 

" Why, what can I think, but that it is so 

it must be true ? " 



GUIDED TO THE "FORREST HOME." 123 

I shall not attempt to describe the joyous emo- 
tion that lit up her beautiful face. After many 
questions she said : 

" Now let me summon our lady guests and tell 
them what a strange and delightful occurrence has 
happened, for it is certainly the most unexpected 
and wonderful event of my life." 

" The ladies " — and they were fully worthy of 
being so called — were introduced to us one after 
another, and when they were seated Mrs. Western 
told the entire story, neglecting not a single inci- 
dent, dream and all, before an audience of old- 
time actresses who had played so many parts so 
many years before, and so well, that they had 
fairly won their places of honor in this superb and 
palatial " Forrest Home," founded by that prince 
of actors by the labors and savings of a long and 
brilliant life dedicated to the noble histrionic art 
which has from the time of Sophocles, done so 
much to delight, amuse, and elevate mankind. 

" It was such a scene as could have hardly ever 
before been enacted on the earth." These were 
the words of the lady friend I had brought with 
me, and who, having no knowledge of my special 



124 GUIDED TO THE "FORREST HOME." 

purpose, and no real idea of Spiritualism, and con- 
sequently no enlightened belief in it. " How won- 
derful all this is," she exclaimed ; and so said they 
all. 

They were amazed ! " It was a strange per- 
formance, at least," said one. " Very wonderful," 
exclaimed another. " And yet we were not dream- 
ing, were we?" asked a third. "What can it 
mean? We have all impersonated fairies, ghosts, 
hobgoblins, and sprites — but have we ever seen 
any of these actual beings ? " 

The conclusion was, however, reached. "What 
could be so splendid as to have some such thing 
enacted in our little theatre ? Oh ! if we only 

could. Mrs. K , is it possible ? Could you 

possibly bring about so magnificent a miracle ? " 

I could hardly make any such promise. But 
we agreed we would look for something strange 
but real in the near future ; and so we underlined 
the new play as in preparation. We felt that we 
must go, and we bade this band of retired actresses 
who had delighted so many hearts, in so many 
lands, in so many scenes and for such long years, 
farewell ', and the curtain fell. It may rise again. 



XVIII. 

GENERAL GARIBALDI RETURNS FROM THE 
SPIRIT LAND. 

I HAD now and then thought, how great a sat- 
isfaction it would be to see General Garibaldi, 
and hold a conversation with him, as I and my 
husband had during a special visit which we made, 
at his earnest invitation, to his home at Caprera. 

Something of what my husband had done to 
aid the cause of Italy in her great struggle for 
independence and union, especially in enabling 
Generals Avezzana and Garibaldi, both of them 
being then exiles in New York, to return to help 
their country, is all so well known to the world, 
that I hope I shall not be thought guilty of pride 
or ostentation in these allusions, as they seem to 
be necessary to show why I had grown so anxious 



126 GENERAL GARIBALDI RETURNS. 

once more to see the great apostle of liberty since 
his translation to the Spirit Land. 

In attending another seance of our usual kind, 
shortly after my last interview with Professor 
Agassiz, I was not surprised to hear the familiar 
voice of spirit Holland — one of Mrs. Williams' 
spirit guides — announce that " my old friend 
General Garibaldi was present, and would appear 
to me that evening." 

I was agitated by the most inspiring hopes and 
tender recollections as I recalled the circum- 
stances of our memorable visit to Caprera — shall 
I be forgiven if I recall them ? . 

Our European tour was about to close with a 
pilgrimage to the home of the greatest of the mod- 
ern Italians. On our way we stopped at Florence 
to seek out my husband's old friend General Avez- 
zana, who was reposing from his battles in an 
honored seat in the Parliament of the nation which 
he had done so much to save. 

The General and his daughter Katie greeted us 
with all the ardor of Italian friendship, and im- 
mediate preparations were made for a trip to 
Caprera. 



GARIBALDI AT CAPRERA. \2J 

With a party of invited guests we set sail from 
Leghorn in the steamship Elba, chartered for the 
purpose, and skirting the shores of Elba and Cor- 
sica, we reached Caprera after a delightful viag- 
getta of eighteen hours. 

On approaching the shore we first saw the Gari- 
baldi house, and next a group of persons stand- 
ing on a rock not far from the landing. On a 
nearer view we recognized the General himself 
as the central figure, resting on his crutches, sur- 
rounded by his staff officers. 

The General had on the costume made so famil- 
iar by his pictures — the red shirt, and black neck- 
erchief tied in a sailor's knot and hanging down 
his back, wide gray pants, and a peculiar over- 
garment of cloth, something like a Roman toga. 
He wore a small round cap embroidered with 
gold, and taking him just as he appeared then, 
one would say he was a man about fifty-five, with 
light brown hair and small brown eyes, and some- 
thing more of the lion in his face than the pic- 
tures give him. His manners were courteous and 
full of dignity. 

Avezzana approached the General, and after 



128 GARIBALDI AT C APR ERA. 

embracing each other like two long-parted broth- 
ers, Avezzana presented all the parties by name, 
and Garibaldi putting his arm through mine on 
one side, and Avezzana's on the other, took the 
lead to the house, as if desirous of welcoming the 
party himself. 

The house was as unpretentious as its master — 
bespeaking fellowship and hospitality without os- 
tentation. The edifice was built of stone and 
rubble, like most Italian country houses of the 
present day, of two stories, with a hall in the 
middle and rooms on either side. 

After the guests were seated at the table, the 
host remarked that " what they saw was the pro- 
duct of his little island — wines, flowers, fruits, 
vegetables, and meats." 

One of the savory dishes of the abundant re- 
past was part of a wild goat which the General had 
shot the day before, not very far from his house. 

It was a primitive but most impressive scene, 
the like of which no one present was likely ever 
to see again. 

And this was Garibaldi of Caprera. Years had 
rolled by, and now the same man who had, at 



GARIBALDI AS A SPIRIT. 1 29 

what we miscall death — which only opened to him 
the gates to immortality — come back to our mun- 
dane sphere, and talked as of old, of the life he 
led then, and the life he was leading now among 
his celestial peers. 

These recollections were suddenly dispelled at 
this seance by hearing my name called, when be- 
fore the curtain stood General Garibaldi as I had 
seen him twelve years before at his island home ! 

At a sign of recognition I approached him, and 
he greeted me as warmly as in mortal life, and 
called me by the name he used to call me, " Gen- 
tle Katie." Then for some minutes he spoke with 
his old enthusiasm about Italy and " the sacred 
cause of liberty " for which he had lived and died. 

I asked him if he remembered when we parted. 

" Oh ! yes ; how well ! " and putting his large 
arm around my waist, he said, in a voice loud 
enough for the entire circle to hear, and in full 
sight of all : 

" Yes, at Caprera, and with my arm around 
your waist as I have it now ; " and then, like so 
many dear ones, he vanished from my sight. 
9 



XIX. 

SPIRITUALISM AT CAMBRIDGE. 

SOON after returning from my delightful visit to 
the " Forrest Home," I was favored with a call 
from one of my old friends whom I had not seen 
for some time, and he happened to allude to the 
investigation of Spiritualism at Harvard College, 
before Professor Felton, about twenty-six years 
ago. This at once excited my interest, for know- 
ing that the Professor was a brother-in-law of Pro- 
fessor Louis Agassiz of the same university, I 
listened very attentively to an account of that ex- 
amination in the presence of two such eminent 
savcifits, with whom my friend had been so inti- 
mately acquainted. He said : 

" A body of intellectual and scientific men of 
Cambridge and Boston, who had carefully ex- 
amined into the alleged phenomena of Spirit- 



SPIRITUALISM AT CAMBRIDGE. 131 

ualism, desired to bring the subject to the atten- 
tion of the savants of Harvard University, and 
they proposed to present the proofs to the two 
eminent professors, Agassiz and Felton. The 
latter gentleman, after very persistent pressure, 
consented, but with great reluctance, to preside, 
and did ; but Agassiz only consented to be pres- 
ent as an observer. The meeting was held, and 
the ' exhibition ' went on, and was so success- 
ful that Professor Felton confessed that he * saw 
no evidence of trick or collusion, and while he 
certainly was not disposed to deny what he saw, 
and could not admit that it was in any sense the 
work of spirits, he was totally unable to account 
for it by any laws or processes with which he was 
acquainted.' 

" An appeal was then made to Professor Agassiz, 
who had from his position been a close observer, 
and he replied that ' he thought he could explain 
it all,' and he promised to do so at some future 
time. But as far as my information extends, he 
never announced that he had done so ; and al- 
though he was repeatedly pressed to attend cir- 
cles and converse with mediums by many of his 



132 SPIRITUALISM AT CAMBRIDGE. 

fellow-scientists, and other men and women for 
whose opinions and statements on other subjects 
he showed the greatest deference, yet he always 
avoided any discussion of Spiritualism — with him 
it was ' a matter as utterly beyond the pale of sci- 
entific discussion, as the construction of a machine 
to produce perpetual motion.' " 

All this, so positively asserted by my eminently 
learned friend, and from his own personal knowl- 
edge, almost confounded me, for it seemed to 
me so utterly unlike the scientific spirit or mode 
of philosophical investigation for which Professor 
Agassiz was so pre-eminently distinguished, that 
I resolved, if possible, to find out his present views 
on the subject ; for he had been some five or six 
years in the spirit world, Avhere he would have 
had the matter forced on his attention, and I 
could neither doubt his candor to confess his mis- 
take, nor his desire to illuminate his fellow-men. 

I could not repress the desire to see and con- 
verse with my illustrious guest and the friend of 
my husband, for I knew them both to be in the 
spirit state, and it would be passing strange if 
they had not met each other before now. If I 



SPIRIT OF AGASSIZ. 133 

could reach my point in no other way, I believed 
my husband would hunt up the Professor, and 
sooner or later bring about a meeting. 

Two evenings after the conversation just related, 
I attended a private seance with Mrs. Williams, 
and after many of my familiar friends had come 
and retired, the curtains opened and there, under 
full gaslight, stood Professor Agassiz, his perfect 
self, as actual as life, and as unmistakable as I 
had looked at him times without number in 
our house, and in walking around our grounds. 
Beckoning me to him as he came forth from the 
cabinet, with his grand form and genial smile, I 
gladly went to him and said : 

" Dear Professor, how glad I am you have 
come ! " 

" I heard what you said to your friend about 
your desire to see me, and so I am here. But it 
is still a mystery to me. I do not fully under- 
stand it yet." 

11 And still you are here, we both know, which 
proves the truth of spirit return." 

" Yes, it is so ; and I want my old friends in 
Cambridge also to know it" 



134 AGASSIZ APPEARS. 

" But how, Professor ? " 

■' Why, through none other than yourself, 
madam ; " and pressing his hand on my left 
shoulder, said, "No one better." And then in 
my presence, as I was standing close to him, and 
with that pressure of his hand yet on my shoulder, 
he vanished without moving away. 

My joy was indescribable ! 



XX. 

THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 

MANY persons, while obliged to concede the 
probable truth of spirit return, ask : 

" Well, if it be all so, what good is it to those 
who believe already in immortality ? Is there 
any practical benefit in it to the believer ? Does 
it improve their conduct, and make them lead 
better lives ? " 

I will relate a single instance, out of a large 
number I have known, which shows how benefi- 
cent an influence this belief exerts on human char- 
acter here in our every-day life. 

As this subject came up in a conversation, not 
long ago, with a well-known gentleman of high 
standing in the great world of business in New 
York, he used the following language : 

" For many years I had been immersed in the 



136 THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 

hot pursuit of trade and speculation, and had ac- 
cumulated a fortune large enough to satisfy the 
reasonable ambition of any man ; for being left 
with only one child, I had enough for our support, 
and to enrich her if she should marry and have 
a home of her own. My daughter, who was yet 
hardly thirteen, was successfully pursuing her edu- 
cation, and with her fine constitution, my affection 
and pride were all centred on my lovely Ellen. 

" Beyond a long life of independence and grati- 
fication for myself, and securing a happy settle- 
ment for Ellen, I neither desired nor expected 
anything better in this life, and as for another life, 
I knew nothing of it and I scarcely gave it a 
thought. When the subject came up I gave it 
no serious consideration, thinking I could not alter 
matters, and would run my chances with the rest. 

" So I determined to go on with my accustomed 
pursuits. I found that the faster my wealth in- 
creased the more pleasure I felt in its accumu- 
lation, and the more consideration it gave me 
among the rapidly increasing class of very rich 
men with whom my means and business reputa- 
tion brought me into close relations. 



THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 137 

" My idea of wealth expanded with its increase, 
as did my ambition for a still more splendid set- 
tlement for my daughter. In the meantime I 
watched with greater pride her development into 
budding womanhood. Not a cloud hung over the 
future, and I thought myself one of the happiest 
and most fortunate of men. 

" Suddenly, as if it were a bolt of lightning from 
a clear sky, the only calamity that could strike 
me fell : my daughter sickened and died. I can 
never give another the faintest conception of 
my misery. The light of life went out, and for a 
while I felt like one groping in the dark. I could 
find consolation nowhere. My brain seemed no 
longer to obey my will — I had no will — no pur- 
pose, no desire. Often since, I have thought I 
was going mad : not raving as people are when 
they have to be confined, but passing into a dole- 
ful state of nothingness. 

" The housekeeper sent for one of my intimate 
friends, who roused me from my lethargy and 
partially brought me to myself. He prevailed on 
me to accompany him down town. There I be- 
gan to feel myself again. Other friends dropped 



138 THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 

in. My confidential clerk brought out some wine 
and liquors from the private closet, and we fell 
back into old-time conversation, and agreed to 
meet the next day. 

" Perhaps all this may have saved me from 
idiocy or insanity. Reaching home, other old 
friends happened in, and after long talks they left 
me. Relaxing into slumber I found oblivion in a 
dreamless sleep. 

" Late the next morning I was waked for break- 
fast, and I ate the first substantial food I had 
taken since I had laid away my child by the side 
of her dead mother. 

" I had no other thing to interest me, and I wel- 
comed the old occupations of business in which I 
could partially forget my sorrow, while with boon 
companions over the wine-cup, some of the old fas- 
cination of my former life came back again, and I 
began to breast myself up against adversity, and 
sought more than ever the society of my associates 
who alone helped me to forget my irreparable loss. 

" But this life could not last ; my business de- 
manded my attention. I was called to Philadel- 
phia. I had determined to begin to restrict my 



THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 1 39 

affairs, and resolved, after making everything snug, 
to leave the business world, seeking what peace I 
could find elsewhere. 

" On the train I found myself seated next to an 
old merchant friend, who happened, in speaking 
of what had recently occurred in his home circle, 
to say that he had met with a severe domestic afflic- 
tion in the death of his only son — a bright youth 
of only fourteen, in whose promising future he 
had treasured up so many hopes. 

" ' But,' said he with a very genial smile, ' I am 
not entirely prostrated by the blow.' 

" I could not help saying, ' You seem to bear 
up very philosophically under so great a loss as 
the death of your son.' Turning round and look- 
ing me full in the face, he said : 

"'Why? Why? my dear friend! my boy is 
not dead — I both see and converse with him.' 

"For a moment it occurred to me that my 
friend must be insane. But before we reached 
Philadelphia he convinced me that if ever there 
was a sane man, he was the man. I had known 
him long, and I had supreme faith in his business 
judgment and perfect veracity. 



140 THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 

" It ended in his extorting from me a promise 
that I would, that very evening, attend a material- 
izing seance, which I did. 

" There, as an entire stranger, I sat witnessing 
many marvellous things, till finally I saw the very 
image of my little girl come to me, and throwing 
her arms around my neck exclaimed : 

" ' Dearest papa ! I am with you, and I see 
everything you do, and hear everything you say. 
I am not dead — there is no death. Do you know 
me ? Am I your dear, dear Ellen ? ' 

" I did know it ; and while I was holding her to 
my breast she vanished away. 

" As I left that room, I felt as though I had just 
waked from a dream. Did my dear spirit child 
hear all I said ? and does she know and see all 
I do ? and can she love me still ? Oh, how I 
longed for her love ! How I needed it ! 

" No sleep for me that night — but what comfort 
came to my poor lacerated heart ! 

" The next day I returned to my home in New 
York. It was a new home to me, and I began a 
new life. No more wine — no more fascination for 
the old pursuits — no more dream or ambition for 



THE USES OF SPIRITUALISM. 14 1 

vast wealth — no more darkness in the future after 
death — there was no more death — only a transi- 
tion. 

" I found all my daughter had said to me con- 
firmed through other circles in New York, and I 
know it now as well, and I realize it more deeply 
than any other experiences in my whole life ! 

" I began at once to end all ventures, risks, or 
speculations. I was not as rich as many of my 
old associates ; but I had quite enough to busy 
me in seeing how to make the best use of it I 
could for the good of others who had, somehow, 
been overlooked in the distribution of the gifts of 
fortune. 

" So I am really busy and happy, you may well 
believe. Now I know we shall live hereafter, and 
at last I have found the object of our life here." 



XXI. 

HOW MY EXPERIENCES IN SPIRITUALISM 
EXPANDED. 

I HAD recently been visiting some friends near 
New York, and had often heard them speak of a 
daughter they had lost years before. But I knew 
nothing further than that it was on an ocean 
steamer. 

Soon after, in the course of an evening seance, 
spirit Holland, in addressing me from the cabinet, 
said that a person by the name of Winn wished to 
speak to me. In a few moments a young girl 
parted the curtains and walked out on the floor, 
and spreading out her arms and moving them as 
though in the act of swimming to sustain herself 
on the water, she appeared to fall on her face. But 
recovering she walked back to the cabinet, motion- 



EXPERIENCES EXPANDED. 143 

ing for me to follow her, which I did. In a weak 
but distinct voice she said : 

"It is my first attempt to materialize myself 
since I reached the spirit world. I wish you to 
tell my brother Andrew that I can return, and I 
wish to communicate with my friends." 

Although I felt sure it must be the lost daughter 
to whom the friends I had recently visited had 
alluded, I could not give her name, for everything 
would be too indefinite to justify me in saying any- 
thing about it. So I resolved to wait till some- 
thing else should come. I saw her again in a 
light seance. 

I afterward had a dark se'ance at my own house, 
and almost the first spirit to come gave me her 
name. It was Ella Whin. She asked me to 
promise to let her brother know it all, which I did 
of course, as I would redeem any pledge to a friend 
in the flesh. 

I had now seen her twice, and I was quite pre- 
pared to describe her person accurately enough to 
identify her, and I called one afternoon at his of- 
fice. He listened for some time while I was re- 
lating what she had told me, and giving her name, 



144 EXPERIENCES EXPANDED. 

he seemed much overcome, and rising from his 
chair said, " All this is very strange." 

" Would you like to see her ? " I asked. 

" Well, yes. But not now. I wish to think of 
it," and I withdrew. 

At my next interview with Ella she said : 

"I was present when you saw my brother. 
Your words made some impression on him, and 
it will all come out right. I thank you, dear sis- 
ter ; " and kissing me on my forehead continued : 
" I am one of your band now, and shall be with 
you very, very often hereafter." 

I then inquired : 

u Ella, do you see my material body when I 
come close to you, as I do now, or my spiritual 
body ? For I am anxious to know." 

II I see both, for I love you and can come into 
your aura" 

" Then am I to suppose that all our loved ones 
can do the same ? " 

*' Yes — but it is not given to all spirits ; some 
can only see the spirit body." 

She dissolved from sight. But it was delightful 
to know that I had her assurance that she had 



EXPEDIENCES EXPANDED. 145 

joined the spirit band of my friends and guides, 
who will be with me till earth-journey is ended 
and we all meet in the Better Land. 

Surely " they are all guardian spirits sent forth 
to minister to the heirs of Eternal Life." 



XXII. 

WHO WAS PRISCILLA f 

THIS spirit purports to be one of Mrs. Williams' 
band, and frequently comes to open her light 
public circles, and prepare the way for the ap- 
pearance of the vast number of spirits who invari- 
ably follow. Her identity was for a long time 
unknown, and was at last ascertained in the fol- 
lowing manner. 

Under the heading " A Remarkable Identifica- 
tion of an Ancient Spirit," the illuminated editor 
of Mind and Matter, a very able spiritual jour- 
nal — November 17, 1883 — says: 

Ever since Mrs. Mary E. Williams, of New York City, 
has been developed as a medium for the production of full- 
formed materializations of spirits, one spirit in particular 
has, at every seance, or nearly so, been the first to appear. 
This spirit always comes robed in a pure white flowing dress, 



WHO WAS PRISCILLA? 147 

and appears as a most attractive young woman. She has 
given her name as Priscilla, but further she made no at- 
tempt to identify herself. She has always, in a few words, 
greeted the circle, and, if we mistake not, stated her object 
in being the first spirit to appear at each circle to be that 
it was to prepare the way for the materialization of other 
spirits. Why this gentle spirit so long withheld the facts 
which would have identified her we do not know, but infer 
that she was not equal to giving the long explanation that 
would have been required for that purpose. Be that as it 
may, her identity has now been established in a most re- 
markable manner, the facts concerning which we will now 
briefly relate. The readers of Mind and Matter need not 
be told of the long-continued series of communications from 
ancient spirits given through the remarkable, if not unpar- 
alleled, mediumship of Alfred James, which have, during 
the past three years and a half, been given from week to 
week in the columns of this paper. 

At a sitting with Mr. James, on June 13th last, we received 
a communication purporting to come from the spirit of Mon- 
tanus, the Phrygian ecstatic and founder of the remarkable 
ancient religious sect called Montanists. This communica- 
tion we published in Mind and Matter of August 18th. 
At that time Mrs. Williams was absent in Canada, where 
she remained for some weeks. She had not seen the copy 
of Mind and Matter containing the communication from 
Montanus. On her return to her home, at 462 West 
Thirty-fourth Street, New York, her spirit guides told her 
to get the paper of August 18th and read the first commu- 
nication given through Mr. James as published in that num- 



148 WHO WAS PRISCILLA? 

ber. Mrs. Williams had read none of the James communi- 
cations printed up to that time, on account of their treating 
of matters that did not interest her. She therefore heard 
the request with indifference and failed to comply with it. 
Nearly two months elapsed, when again her guides made 
the urgent request that she would look that number of the 
paper up and read the communication from Montanus. 
This she was reluctant to do, as a large number of papers 
and publications had accumulated in the meantime. This 
time, however, reluctant as she was about the matter, the 
request was so urgent and persistent that she was forced 
to comply, and set about hunting up the paper, which after 
considerable trouble she found, she receiving an electric 
shock as she took the paper containing the communication 
in her hand. The name of Priscilla had been mentioned 
as interested in having Mrs. W. to read the communication. 
What was her surprise to read the following portion of the 
communication : 

"When I was on earth (a. d. 170) everything was un- 
dergoing transition. Old and effete idolatrous religions 
were beginning to die out before that great question pro- 
pounded by the patriarch of Chaldea, Jovinus (called in 
your Old Testament Job), whose works I read, and which 
bore the date of 2200 years before my time : ' If a man die 
shall he live again ? ' I found it repeated in a little book 
called ' The Analysis of Pythagorianism,' which was extant 
at that time. This set me to thinking, and I then resolved 
to follow the direction of Pythagoras, in order to establish 
communication with what were termed the manes of our 
ancestors. This, by the aid of two female mediums or ec- 



t 
WHO WAS PRISCILLA? 149 

statics, I accomplished. Their names were Priscilla and 
Maximilla ; and from what we received through those ec- 
statics, myself and followers became converts to the teach- 
ings of the great intelligences that controlled them. With 
the fervor of our race we started out together to prove what 
we asserted was true, by word and act. Even the most 
learned and influential priests could not make a stand 
against our facts. From A. D. 175 to 250 we increased so 
rapidly as a sect, in spite of the opposition of the priest- 
hood of other systems then known, that our meetings were 
suppressed by the ruling powers of different countries. We 
actually proved, at the time of making our statements, that 
the true light had lightened every one that cometh into the 
world, because it was equally available to man, woman, and 
child. The Montanists were the predecessors, or founders, 
of Eclecticism of Potamon, Ammonius Saccas, and their fol- 
lowers, which was a blending of Platonism and Pythago- 
rianism. One of the so-called Christian fathers, Origen, 
became a follower of mine. We had those phases of spir- 
itual phenomena called trance, healing, physical appear- 
ances, and other manifestations of spirit power. Maximilla 
was a healing medium ; Priscilla a medium for materializa- 
tion and other physical phenomena ; and I was the trance 
medium, and taught in a state of ecstacy. There was one 
phenomenon that was very impressive. We mediums be- 
came transfigured and illuminated, so that the people could 
with difficulty look upon us. I taught from the revised 
Buddhistic canons of the reign of Ardelos Babeker, which 
Apollonius brought from India. It was translated into the 
Phrygian dialect by a priest of Cybele." 



I50 WHO WAS PRISCILLA? 

A few days after this singular but conclusive identifica- 
tion of spirit, Priscilla, who is so important a spirit-helper 
at Mrs. Williams' seances as the remarkable Phrygian ec- 
static, we attended a stance given by Mrs. Williams, at 
which the spirit Priscilla appeared as usual. After saluting 
the circle she called us to the cabinet, where we had the 
fullest opportunity of seeing the spirit fully, and have no 
doubt whatever that she is the same Priscilla that, with 
Montanus and Maximilla, more than seventeen hundred 
years ago, sought to resume the spiritualistic work of the 
Samian sage, Pythagoras, and who created such a commo- 
tion throughout the countries of Asia that were peopled by 
Greeks, and which spread over all the Greek and African 
provinces of the Roman Empire. We regard the identifi- 
cation of this ancient medium as positively certain. It is 
not the least significant feature of her present work that it 
is identically the same as it was when she lived on earth, 
that is giving proof to mortals that the spirits of the so- 
called dead do live, do return, and do actually manifest 
themselves to the physical senses of those of earth's inhabi- 
tants who have perception enough to receive the evidence 
that is made tangible to them. 

It is a well-established fact now throughout the 
spiritualistic world, that many of the most illumi- 
nated philosophers and teachers of past ages are 
returning from the spirit spheres, and establishing 
their identity by the most irrefragable proofs. All 
this goes to show that the relations of the depart- 



% 
FUTURE DEMONSTRATIONS EXPECTED. 151 

ed of former times with the living of this age are 
becoming more and more intimate. Nor is it too 
much to expect revelations from the chief actors 
of past generations, who will cast clear light upon 
the nations which flourished in the far-off anti- 
quity, that has hitherto lain concealed in the mists 
of what we call the pre-historic periods. 



XXIII. 

LIFE AND OCCUPATIONS IN THE SPIRIT 
WORLD. 

A VAST amount of information on this subject 
exists, and it is found scattered through the litera- 
ture of all nations, embracing their records in 
print, manuscripts, traditions, and monuments 
which are being interpreted more and more clear- 
ly, as science and knowledge advance among 
mankind. But as these sources of information 
are open to investigation on all sides, I shall con- 
fine myself, as I proposed in the beginning, chiefly 
to what I have learned by my own experience and 
observation. 

All through human history we find that man- 
kind have felt an irrepressible yearning for knowl- 
edge of the life to come, especially of the condi- 
tions and pursuits of their departed friends. Since 



LIFE IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. 153 

new light has in our new age begun to stream 
over this and many other occult subjects, our 
knowledge has been rapidly increasing, until the 
material and the spiritual worlds have been 
brought so close together that we can, and do, 
get as satisfactory knowledge of the life of hu- 
manity in a spirit state, as we do of our surround- 
ings here. 

Indeed, we venture to say even more ; for where 
the processes of chemistry in photography, and 
the manipulation of electro-magnetism in the tele- 
graph and telephone, are comprehended by one 
operator, the relations of the minds of the living 
with the minds of the departed, are known and 
comprehended by thousands. 

There seems to be a more subtle connection be- 
tween the intercourse of mortals and spirits, but 
it is only in the seeming ; for if ten or fifteen years 
ago it had been said that words uttered in New 
York would be instantly heard and answered at 
Chicago, it would have been pronounced more in- 
credible than that a materialized spirit's words 
could be heard when whispered at a distance of a 
few inches in the ear of a mortal, or uttered in the 



154 LIFE IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

hearing of a numerous assembly. But both are 
daily and hourly demonstrated facts. 

Having therefore had the spiritual telegraph 
and telephone in practical operation long before 
we learned of the processes of Morse, or Bell, or 
Daguerre, Spiritualists may claim priority in dis- 
covery ; and as no information about the spirit 
world can be relied on from anybody except some 
one who has been there and come back to tell, we 
hold that if our informants are honest, we can 
take their testimony as confidently as we can the 
accounts of Livingstone or Stanley, about life in 
the Dark Continent. 

If this be so we can see no more difficulty in 
learning about the domestic life which our spirit 
friends are leading there, than in the case of the 
Esquimaux at the Pole, or the Negroes on Lake 
Tanganyika. 

We may, for the moment, be imposed on by a 
Baron Munchausen, or beguiled by the fiction of 
a De Foe ; but a thousand counterfeits never 
made good coin bad, nor bad coin good. The 
coarse and bungling counterfeits of impostors in 
Spiritualism, should be dismissed as worthy only 



LIFE IN THE SPIRIT WORLD. 155 

of punishment or contempt. The lying spirits in 
all things, are ever with us, and therefore the 
greater need of " trying the spirits." 

It is only in this spirit of candid investigation 
that new truths can be discovered or accepted. 
The universe of unknown facts is never revealed 
to the Bourbons of the race. Men who never for- 
get the old, never accept the new. 

A striking instance of this occurred recently in 
the case of Rev. Heber Newton, of New York, in 
one of his brilliant and learned lectures on the 
legends of Genesis. While speaking of angels' 
visits to men in patriarchal times, he well said 
that " there may be other and higher beings than 
men, and communications may well be made from 
the spiritual world to human spirits in the human 
form, and these tales may be only the poetic 
forms of such spiritual experiences, as come to us 
in our own age-experiences, whose reality we are 
as yet neither prepared to affirm nor deny." 



XXIV. 

WHA T I HAVE LEARNED OF O UR RELA TIONS 
TO THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

I. In all communications which I have received 
or observed concerning the occupations of the in- 
habitants of the spirit world, I have always been 
struck with their pre-eminently human character. 
In no respect have I on any occasion heard a 
sound or seen a form that did not bear the un- 
mistakable qualities and marks of our common 
humanity, nor have I ever met a Spiritualist who 
did not say the same thing. One and all consider 
all spiritual apparitions and sounds and acts, as 
originating in human beings who have passed 
away. 

This is the most reasonable and philosophical 
conclusion to which any clear-minded person can 
arrive. This will account for all alleged spiritual 



OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. I $7 

phenomena, and it divests them of all that ghostly- 
mystery with which vulgar superstition has clothed 
them. 

When young persons — as in the case I described 
of the lovely girl from Jamestown — are allowed to 
see a returning mother as though she had just 
come home after an absence, she is recognized 
with affection and delight, and there is nothing to 
cause fear or distress. 

All children should be brought up in the same 
way. Nobody can tell how much misery ghost 
and hobgoblin stories have unnecessarily produced 
in the minds of children who are thus cruelly 
victimized to the ignorance and superstition of 
mothers, nurses, and servants. No child properly 
brought up would ever be afraid of the dark. 

2. The naturalness of the spirit life is a lesson 
which all returning spirits teach, and which we 
should teach to our children. Even the most ig- 
norant and besotted fathers tell their bereaved 
children that the mother is not dead, but gone to 
a beautiful country which is called heaven, and 
that she will greet her loved ones when they go to 
live with her. 



158 OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 

This is the creed of every religion under heaven, 
and every creed sanctions so holy a belief. The 
descriptions brought back to us of the future life 
of the blessed by the departed of all nations, and 
all divine revelations, and above all by our own 
loved ones, represent heaven as peopled by human 
spirits called angels, who become guardians of the 
living. More than any other religion, except the 
faith of Spiritualists, does Christianity inculcate 
this, and it is a poor and a spurious Christianity 
which makes war on Spiritualism because it claims 
that its believers profess to hold more intimate 
communion with the redeemed than they do or 
can themselves. 

They get their ideas of a future life as they have 
been taught by traditions a thousand or two thou- 
sand years old, and served up into six hundred 
hydra-headed wrangling sects and creeds ; while 
Spiritualists derive their belief directly from those 
now living in the spirit land, who return and talk 
with those they knew and loved, identifying them- 
selves here as plainly as they ever did in flesh and 
blood. From such persons and sources alone can 
we get any reliable or exact information about the 



OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 1 59 

future state, or the condition or pursuits of its in- 
habitants. The one class accept a transmitted 
belief with, at best, only a shadowy fabric of evi- 
dence, while the Spiritualist reposes securely on 
the solid foundation of demonstrated facts. 

An interesting case of materialization without 
the presence of a known medium occurred at 
Montreal. Ten years ago seven young ladies at 
a Hallowe'en party agreed to meet on the tenth 
anniversary at the same house, and it was stipu- 
lated specially " dead or alive." The originator 
of the plan and the pledge suddenly died. But 
the six survivors, who had preserved a vivid 
memory of the agreement, met again in the same 
apartment, and a chair draped in black was placed 
where the deceased girl had sat ten years before, 
and on the table in front of it was a cluster of 
withered flowers taken from the grave of the de- 
parted one. 

The lady who had sat next to her at the first 
meeting, experienced a strange nervous agitation 
which she could not suppress, but after a while it 
passed away and was almost forgotten. After 
tea this young lady started for the parlor, leading 



l60 OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 

the party, and carrying the withered flowers in 
her hand. On opening the door she was suddenly 
arrested, and pointing at some object before her, 
they all saw a tall white figure standing in the 
room which none of them doubted was their old 
friend and companion. It disappeared. But the 
principal lady opened the door into the hall, and 
her cry brought the whole party to her, when 
they all exclaimed, " It is she again ! " for they saw 
the same figure once more as they had seen it at 
first. The street door seemed to open of itself, 
from which the figure vanished, when the door 
closed, apparently by no mortal hand. 

3. Nothing that purports in our times, or in 
previous ages, to reveal to mortals the occupa- 
tions of human beings in spirit life, is more clearly 
announced or proved than that they carry with 
them the same proclivities and tastes they had 
cultivated or indulged in here. For no other pur- 
suits are they prepared, and as their education in 
this mortal state is only preparatory to the future, 
this education naturally goes on, and continues in 
an endless career of advancement. 

As there is no opportunity for the indulgence of 



OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. l6l 

any sensual lusts and passions in a spirit state, all 
their occupations must be confined to the realm 
of the intellect and the affections. Avarice no 
longer finds its gratification in accumulating gold, 
for there is no gold there ; nor can any other of 
earth's material possessions add pleasure or con- 
sideration in a sphere where they can carry no 
weight, since they have no place. Man takes with 
him no treasures but those which belong to the 
intellect, and the soul. These alone are spiritual, 
and the spirit's possessions alone are enduring. 

There the soul asserts her majesty and rules su- 
preme. Lazarus and Dives change places. 

So it is not surprising that those who have most 
cultured the intellect and the affections, enter at 
once upon the new condition with immense ad- 
vantages in the race for eternal life. They go 
right on — the rest have to wait till they can begin 
to learn the alphabet of how to live. They find 
it a hard life. They all tell us so. It is all nat- 
ural and all right, and they would have been for- 
tunate had they known it before. 

The student who dedicated his mundane exist- 
ence to learning the laws of the physical universe, 



1 62 OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 

at once yields to his master-passion, and seeks and 
finds his congenial place. It will be in the com- 
pany of his old masters in science and learning, 
who will open to him new fields for knowledge. 
The astronomer will look for Newton, and Coper- 
nicus, and Kepler, and Galileo, and resume his 
studies anew. The poets will all inquire for 
Shakespeare, and Dante, and Homer. The in- 
ventors will find Arkwright, and Fulton, and 
Watt, and Stevenson. The engineers will ask for 
Archimides, and the painters and sculptors will 
find their way to the palace studios of Phidias, 
Michael Angelo, and Raphael. .There is no limit 
to the spirit world nor to the pursuits of its inhabi- 
tants. There the true and the good will all find 
endless fields for the occupations they are best 
adapted to, and in which they will take the high- 
est delight. 

When asked, a few evenings ago, about the life 
the departed lead, spirit Holland, one of the best 
known and best beloved of a vast circle of Spirit- 
ualists in New York, responded : 

"We lead active and real lives. Our homes 
are natural and tangible ; indeed, so much so that 



OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 1 63 

to the newly arrived one, it is for a time difficult 
for him to believe that he has made the transition. 
None but returned spirits can set the world aright 
in regard to God, and the laws of the universe of 
matter and mind. My Christian friends, the whole 
fabric of your dogmatic theology is fast melting 
away before the sunrise of truth which is begin- 
ning to shine into human hearts. It may seem 
to come slowly. But the demands of suffering 
humanity for spiritual food are so much greater 
than the supply, on account of the lack of a suffi- 
ciently large number of qualified mediums to an- 
swer the wants and aspirations of the light-seek- 
ers, that spirit-workers are pressing their forces 
through every mediumistic avenue which is open 
to their approach. 

"At all our seances a double work is carried on : 
the materializations which you all witness, and 
the unseen development of mediumship and spirit- 
work, produced by harmonizing and blending for 
co-operative effort the spirit-hands of mediums 
who are present. The children of Spiritualists are 
not taught that they can receive the benediction 
and instruction of the angels outside of the stance- 



1 64 OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 

room, while they should be able to realize that 
spirit guardians and friends are with them at all 
times and in all places. 

" Circles for spiritual instruction and unfold- 
ment should be formed in every household. In 
the atmosphere of the loving emanations of the 
home circle, the heart is warmed and opened to 
influx from the spirit spheres, and both parents 
and children can then be approached by those 
heavenly teachers who are often debarred from 
public sdance-vooms by the clashing, antagonizing 
elements of suspicion and distrust. Instruction 
thus received at home from spirit teachers, would 
be of incalculable benefit in all the duties and 
temptations of their after years." 

From another speaker of a spirit band we re- 
ceived the following reply to an inquiry about the 
manner of spirit life : 

" As spirits we can realize all sensations through 
our master-sense — perception ; as when looking on 
mortals we can see the events of their past lives. 
The motives for right seem to illumine the soul's 
aura with indescribable brightness, and cast a halo 
of beauty over the whole being. 'Do you see 



OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 1 6* 5 

that old man ? ' said a spirit pointing to a person in 
the stance. ' He has not a comely look to mortals ; 
but as a soul in the light of his noble life, the emana- 
tions that he casts forth are like those of an angel.' 

"I could tell you many things which are revealed 
to the soul's eye but unknown to the bodily 
senses. I feel sure that human beings would 
shrink from crime, or even bad thoughts, if they 
knew how hideously they show on the soul. 
Crime can be wiped away only by personal, not 
by vicarious atonement as taught on earth. The 
world will soon learn far more about all these 
things, for the spirits are preparing to bridge 
over the gulf more effectually, and men and spir- 
its will soon cross and recross it familiarly. 

" Every spirit has a home, a place, where all 
one has loved and wished for becomes embodied 
in the soul's surroundings. 

"We teach that man as a perfect organism 
cannot die. The mould in which he is formed 
must perish, in order that the soul may go free. 

" Humanity must move on. It is ordained that 
the world must finally attain to a true knowledge 
of spiritual existence. 



1 66 OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 

" Physical science has conducted the world up 
to the gates where spiritual science commences. 
The world must grow, and Spiritualism is one of 
its outgrowths. As men grow into spiritual light, 
they better understand the methods of communi- 
cation. 

"The earth is full of occult forces. Trees and 
plants, minerals and fluids are all teeming with 
magnetism ; to draw them forth and to apply 
them will be the next phase of science which hu- 
manity will achieve. 

" You ask, ' Is the soul a substance ? ' I heard 
some one put this question. I answer, Is the air 
or wind a substance ? You cannot see or feel 
either until they come into contact with some 
other substance ; but when they do, although in- 
visible, you know they are something. The soul 
is something finer than the atmosphere — finer than 
ether, and it can pass through matter with perfect 
ease. 

" You also inquire ' how bodies in which spir- 
its return, and the clothing they wear, are made?' 

" It is a difficult question to answer so that you 
will understand it, but perhaps not more so than 



OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 1 67 

for one of your chemists to explain the aroma of 
the rose, or the difference between its perfume 
and that of a hundred other varieties of flowers ; 
or account for the transmission of the poison of 
disease through the atmosphere sometimes by a 
single inhalation, or the growth of vegetable fungi 
in an hour, or the rending of a sturdy oak into 
splinters, or a granite cliff into fragments by a 
lightning bolt in a small part of a second. All 
you know is the facts. 

' 'There are numberless physical phenomena 
constantly going on before your faces and eyes 
which your chemists cannot explain ; and so there 
are elements and forces in air, water, and solid 
■substances of which science is still ignorant, and 
for which chemistry has no name. Even of the 
names of ascertained elements, the mass of man- 
kind are ignorant. It ought not to be thought 
very strange, therefore, that spirits should not be 
able to answer all questions. They are not pos- 
sessed of all knowledge ; only the Creator Spirit 
has infinite knowledge. In these respects there 
is no other law or process for the acquisition of 
knowledge among spirits, than among mortals. 



1 68 OUR RELATIONS TO THE SPIRITS. 

Experience, study, observation , and the help of 
teachers : over this road all created beings have 
had to travel in the past, and will have to pass 
forever. This is what alone can be called the 
royal road to learning. You have all degrees 
of this on earth — original endowments by nature, 
opportunities more or less favorable, and circum- 
stances more or less auspicious for embracing 
them ; and all through life what you call good or 
bad fortune, of which no two of you seem to share 
alike ; so that all these things account for the 
endless diversity of earthly conditions. 

" Very much so, you must think of spirits in 
their spheres. The differences are not so great 
in some respects, but in others they are vastly 
greater. Ignorance, and especially mental igno- 
rance, is slow of illumination ; but spiritual and 
indurated ignorance is slowest of all. 

"As concerns the clothing of the returning 
spirit body with substances which will identify its 
personality and its costume, and how it is all at- 
tired, this is the clearest explanation we can give. 
We say then : 

" First, we must have mediums present gifted 



HOW THE SPIRITS WORK. l6~9 

with those capabilities of attracting the elements 
necessary for us to use in clothing our spirit 
bodies, so that we shall be recognized by those 
who knew us as mortals, and when we are able to 
appear successfully, we are always attended by 
spirit chemists, who either help us or teach us in 
this work. Thus after more or less training, some 
of us are able to come alone, although we are sel- 
dom unattended. 

" Second, we must not only have this medium- 
istic reliance, but we must have a harmonious cir- 
cle, with no hostile or antagonistic elements pres- 
ent. These discordant influences are fatal to all 
peaceful social circles even among mortals ; how 
much more so among spirits — you know what the 
' still small voice ' means. 

"It is under such conditions that we have our 
best successes. You must not be astonished at 
the quickness with which our preparations are 
made, for your own electrical discoveries have ab- 
solutely annihilated space and time, and if you 
have compelled some of the occult forces to do 
your bidding as mortals, can you wonder at the 
power of the immortals ? " 



XXV. 

INFANTS IN SPIRIT LIFE. 

The question of the future condition of de- 
parted infants, of whom so many millions pass 
away every year, had often interested me, and 
lately so deeply as to create in my mind some 
anxiety, for reasons which I need not explain. I 
was shortly favored with the following communi- 
cation, of which I transcribe the substance and 
spirit, and for the most part, the exact words. It 
was an advanced spirit who spoke, and she seemed 
very desirous to have her message as widely 
known to American mothers as possible : 

" We have no children born in the spirit world ; 
our spheres are replenished only from the earth. 
We take them up, one by one, as they press on us 
from a world of which they could have known so 
little, and of the mysteries of existence they could 



INFANTS IN SPIRIT LIFE. 171 

have had no conception. This is one of our most 
sacred duties, as well as one of our most delightful 
engagements. 

" Infants who come over, grow with great ra- 
pidity, and with none of the hindrances or draw- 
backs which so generally — if not universally — im- 
pede their perfect development on earth. You 
must not suppose that we consider it fortunate to 
die early, for it was designed by the Infinite 
Father to have his earthly children learn by ex- 
perience how to save, enjoy, and prolong mortal 
life to so mature a period that the transition to a 
higher life should occur without shock or pain ; 
and with some, this does happen. It will become 
more common as men learn the laws of nature, 
and the inevitable penalties attached to their 
violation. And yet we never forget, when we 
clasp the tiny new-comers to our bosoms, that 
they have been safely landed on the shore of de- 
liverance, where none of earth's troubles will ever 
reach them. They are all safe here. 

" Oh ! if earth's mothers could only see with 
what tender care their dear ones are watched by 
their spirit mothers, how different their feelings 



172 INFANTS IN SPIRIT LIFE. 

would be at the period of their bereavement. 
The love of the earth mother is great indeed ; but 
it can hardly surpass that of the spirit mother for 
her adopted child. As soon as one of these little 
ones reaches the higher life, the arms of a thou- 
sand mothers are opened to receive it ; and how 
many of these prematurely cut-off ones are wisely 
saved from evils to come, unseen even by the im- 
mortals ! No one can tell. 

"When they are old enough (as you say, or 
sufficiently developed as we say) they go to school, 
and there they are furnished with the best facilities 
we can provide for their advancement. 

" All Americans ought to know who our be- 
loved Margaret Fuller was — that great and noble 
woman who was so great a loss to earth, and 
how much greater gain she was to us. She is en- 
gaged in teaching a great school for young girls, 
of the most brilliant capabilities for the highest 
achievements in the future. She had surpassed 
most of her contemporaries in higher knowledge 
while she lived in mortal life, and now since find- 
ing her place here, she has had full scope for in- 
dulging her ruling passion — the elevation of her 



INFANTS IN SPIRIT LIFE. 1 73 

sex to the position which the Supreme Master 
intended her to occupy, in his sublime develop- 
ment of the final destinies of the earth. 

" Only a few of her associates knew how amply 
Margaret Fuller was endowed with those spiritual 
qualities which elevate them in our world. 

" And lest my strength, or your time may fail, 
let me say to every earth mother that, though her 
dear one may have passed over to our side when 
it was only in the tenderest of infancy, yet that 
mother's heart will recognize it at once, when they 
meet, though it may have grown to manhood, or 
bloomed to beautiful womanhood before her ar- 
rival ; for the ties of true affection formed on earth 
remain unbroken here. 

" Also I may say that mothers who have left 
infants behind them, are so engrossed in the old 
love and care, that were there not a law of nature 
to compel them to stay a part of their time in the 
spirit world, they would pass every moment with 
their children. Each one, however, is compelled 
to learn her lesson of progression. 

" There is work here for all hearts, and all hands. 
This is not confined to our friends alone. Some 



174 INFANTS IN SPIRIT LIFE. 

of it must be given to our enemies. They are 
among the first ones that we seek, for if we have 
done them any wrong our duty and desire is to 
atone for it, which the transgressor alone can do ; 
and if one has done us wrong, the injured one 
alone can touch the heart of the wrong-doer by 
carrying to him the olive branch of forgiveness 
and love. Love is the only instrument of power 
we can use here. With that alone can we win the 
dwellers below us, and elevate them to higher 
spheres. If this is the greatest power on earth, 
how irresistible must it be in the spirit world ! 

" Mortals, especially the mass of the undevel- 
oped and the sensual, think so little, and really 
so thoughtlessly about immortality, and put it so 
far away from them, that it is, as you know, very 
hard to get them away from the sordid lives they 
lead. But as soon as they recover from the blind, 
half- dazed entrance to the lower spirit sphere for 
which alone they are prepared, their minds begin 
slowly to open to the reception of the new light. 
That is the stage where they feel their helplessness, 
and after a while they begin to grow willing to 
learn from kind lips, lessons which fell upon deaf 



HOW SPIRITS ADVANCE. 1 75 

ears, even when, if ever they were, uttered lov- 
ingly, in the midst of their earthly degradation. 
Of this work we never grow so tired that it be- 
comes irksome, for we see our progress, and it 
furnishes us a never- failing reward." 

In giving such impressions to my readers as I 
have received from my spirit friends about the 
lives they lead in their present homes, I should 
never forgive myself if I had neglected to tell how 
infants and young children who die early are re- 
ceived, and treated in the future life. It would 
seem that if any communications from the depart- 
ed should interest the living, it would be for 
mothers to know about their little ones who have 
been laid away in the cold ground, forever beyond 
their sight. Thank God we are not left here with- 
out intelligence, which should bring comfort to 
every bereaved mother's heart. 

Among all the clear and satisfactory messages 
which come to us from the Better Land, none are 
clearer or more comforting than these : 

From the earliest dawn of life, some guardian 
spirit is assigned to watch over it throughout its 
mortal career, and this guardianship never ceases 



176 CHTLDRENS' GUARDIAN ANGELS. 

till its final emancipation in being born into im- 
mortality, which is its second birth. 

It is the business of this guardian spirit to at- 
tend its charge constantly, to save it from every 
danger to body or soul, and do for it the best that 
can be done during its earthly career. 

If it is taken away in tender years, it is not cast 
aside like a waif, to drift helplessly on the dark 
ocean, but borne in safe hands into a peaceful and 
beautiful home, where it is guarded and guided 
by tender and loving ones, shielded from all the 
troubles and temptations of earth, and developed 
into the higher and blessed society of the celestial 
spheres. This can be done only by the spirits of 
departed mothers, sisters, and relations of the 
young immortals who are numbered by millions 
in the annual flight of our earth around the sun. 

What spiritual vision can grasp so vast and 
sublime a spectacle, or conceive the extent of the 
field of these tender ministrations ? How long 
this process has been going on, we neither know, 
nor perhaps should, if told, be able to comprehend. 
But of the truth of the revelations made known to 
us, we have the most abundant demonstrations. 



THE FUTURE OF SPIRITUALISM. 177 

The signs, moreover, of still broader and more 
intimate relations between the material and the 
spiritual world, are multiplying throughout the 
earth. They are not confined to one or more na- 
tions, or tribes, or families of men ; but as might 
naturally be expected, the progress of spiritual 
knowledge corresponds in equal ratio to the ad- 
vancement of science and virtue. Hence, we find 
these two sources of knowledge are everywhere 
seen going hand in hand, and marching side by 
side. All finite beings, mortals and immortals, 
obey the same organized law — to seek for light. 

This is the chord which vibrates through the 
ages, and in tracing it backward as transmitted to 
us by the sages, and forward to its connection 
with their more highly illuminated minds in higher 
spheres, we can readily account for the amazing 
progress of scientific knowledge in our own times, 
and we are thus prepared for still more astonish- 
ing discoveries in the future. 

Beliefs have done little good for mankind in the 
past, and incalculable evil. Ignorance can boast 
of no achievement except as the fruitful mother of 
superstition, and her children's bones have whit- 



178 INSPIRATION THROUGH THE AGES. 

ened the soils of dead empires. Science has car- 
ried the only torch which has illuminated the hu- 
man pathway, and inspiration has been her only 
guide. To this celestial source all the great bene- 
factors of the race have, through all historic time, 
bowed in humble and devout adoration. The 
freed spirits of the sages of antiquity from Homer 
and Socrates, and Plato to Pythagoras and Con-? 
fucius, and so down the ages through the unbro- 
ken line of light-bearers, till we reach our days, 
when we hold in our hands the golden skirts of 
an age of universal illumination. 



XXVI. 

COUNCILS IN THE SPIRIT WORLD FOR MUN- 
DANE INFLUENCE. 

On this subject I have been favored with com- 
munications which I esteem to be of higher im- 
portance than almost any others I have received, 
since they seem to come from more advanced 
spirits, and they inspire me with higher hopes for 
a far more rapid and brilliant development of the 
spiritual dispensation on earth, than we have 
hitherto expected. 

But if I did not feel that these messages were as 
clearly and satisfactorily made as those simpler 
ones of which I have recorded a few in this work, 
their authenticity would be so clouded by mys- 
ticism and doubt, they would find no place in 
these unpretending pages. 

I do not suppose that the economy of this sys- 



l8o SPIRIT WORLD COUNCILS. 

tern of intercourse between the earthly and the 
spiritual worlds admits of the messages of the ad- 
vanced spirits reaching us as directly, and demon- 
stratively to our bodily senses, as when they come 
to us so familiarly from our recently departed 
friends. But I am fully convinced that those 
higher spirits can, and do, transmit to us, through 
the mediums of lower spheres, such impressions 
and inspirations as they wish to have reach us. 

i. From what little I have learned on this sub- 
ject, I am firmly convinced that no knowledge of 
a future state is communicated to mortals any 
further than they are prepared to receive it. It 
could not consist with the economy of the uni- 
verse to waste any of its resources, whether ma- 
terial or spiritual, in vain attempts to hurry results 
before their time. Hence, in our limited knowl- 
edge, we are often liable to grow so impatient as 
to incur the hazard of missing what we seek, by 
trying to realize it before it can come. This often 
happens in our mundane affairs. How much 
more necessary to cultivate that serenity of mind 
which alone can inspire the patience that wins the 
prize at last. 



SUBTLETY OF SPIRIT INFLUENCE. 151 

All experienced observers of spiritualistic phe- 
nomena know how easily they are interrupted by 
disturbing the harmony of a circle through the 
presence of a hostile, or even an uncongenial per- 
son. The same effect is seen in the execution of 
delicate music, or a jar in forming crystals in a 
laboratory, or any sudden shock in genial social 
circles. So, too, it often happens that the most 
astounding displays of spiritual power in physical 
manifestations often occur in dark circles ; and in 
thousands of well-authenticated cases of ghost- 
ly apparitions, and strange noises, in so-called 
haunted houses and places. Ask the chemist 
how many of his finer processes have to be con- 
ducted only in the dark. The secret may be too 
subtle for his perception, but he knows the fact. 

For all my readers I wish to emphasize the im- 
portant idea — especially to those who are examin- 
ing into Spiritualism for the first time — that they 
would do well to approach this, like any other 
subject, and accept the facts as they come, and 
determine them by the same evidence by which 
they settle all other facts. I have acted in this 
way, and I do not yet learn, or believe, that we 



1 82 LAWS OF REASON. 

should now, or hereafter, expect that any other 
law of thinking, or acting, would be adapted to 
the human reason. By this, and this only, can the 
intellect of man ever be approached. One, and 
only one, law for mortals or spirits. 

2. As we move on from this life to another, 
these laws prevail ; and we shall undergo no 
change in the spirit life that will ever metamor- 
phize us into anybody but ourselves — we shall 
preserve our identity forever. Otherwise, there 
would be chaos in the universe, which is an im- 
possibility in this great Cosmos, in which no ex- 
ception has yet been found to impair the perfec- 
tion of its unity, or the supremacy of its laws. 

Of course, there must be grades of progress 
there, as here. Advancement by progress is the 
law there, as here, in everything that belongs to 
the universal system of the groundwork, and the 
development of the first idea of the Creator and 
Author of it all. The details of the work, must 
correspond with the final consummation, which 
no created being is able to comprehend. 

But through the mediumship of the departed 
who have known the earth, we may, and do, get 



HIGHER SPIRIT INSPIRATION. 1 83 

their experiences as far as they have advanced, 
and this knowledge is now being communicated 
to millions of the living. This is more or less fully 
known to those who have taken the necessary 
steps to acquire it. 

3. But some have taken the trouble in this case, 
as in so many others, to go further, and in re- 
sponse to their aspirations they have gained more 
light — direct or reflected — from upper spheres. 
Just as perseverance and study reward the seeker 
for higher knowledge here, in any of the occult 
domains of nature. 

4. But we must come to superior light to know 
something beyond these inferior things which 
more immediately concern what I have been at- 
tempting to unfold. Thus far I have confined 
myself chiefly to our immediate intercourse with 
our personal acquaintance — those whom we know 
have passed on to the spirit world, and recognize 
when they return. They tell us what we can 
readily believe, that in their young life there, 
while they can give us no very extended experi- 
ence of a spiritual condition, yet through some of 
them who were better prepared for that life, they 



1 84 SPIRIT COUNCILS. 

were found more ready for admission to a more 
exalted sphere than most others, and they could 
tell us something that would give us no uncer- 
tain glimpses of the more elevated circles above 
them. 

And of such sources of information we are fully 
assured. Of the many occasions which we might 
cite for such a conviction, I can, with well-assured 
confidence, give the following as a clear, if brief, 
representation of the progress going on in the 
spirit world, toward the grand consummation they 
are making for the advancement of the earth's in- 
habitants to a higher condition. 

5. As might readily be supposed, we find that 
groups of sympathetic spirits should unite to de- 
vise the most effectual plans for their earth work, 
and arrange necessary measures for carrying them 
into effect. These groups, or councils, are as 
numerous as are the diversified interests, classes, 
and pursuits which concern mankind, and in 
which, during their earth lives, they were them- 
selves engaged. 

It is impossible to conceive how any system 
should prevail there, entirely different from the 



WHAT SPIRITS ARE DOING FOR US. 1 85 

one which prevails here, and throughout the 

physical creation as far as we see or learn 

Aggregation of mutually attracted units into ag- 
gregated wholes, as worlds of matter were 
formed ; or the concentration of minds, for the 
achievement of some common purpose. All 
power is multiplied by the aggregation of units 
of forces. 

6. As a consequence, we understand that there 
must be a complete organization of all spiritual 
circles of individuals who assist at their consulta- 
tions. Old as our world seems to be, it has only 
reached in recent times its present stage of evolu- 
tion. The agencies of steam, electricity, and the 
only faintly developed powers of magnetism, had 
to become known to men before departed spirits 
could begin their great work in ushering in this 
New Dispensation. 

All through the preceding ages, earlier earth- 
emancipated mortals shot occasional gleams of 
light on the paths of the most favored of men, 
among all nations, and they did their best to raise 
their fellows up to higher conditions here, and 
higher aspirations hereafter. But they could only 



1 86 WHAT SPIRITS DO FOR EARTH. 

succeed far enough to kindle the fires which kept 
the world so long from utter darkness. 

But these lamps are now burning in more places 
around the earth than ever, and shedding a 
brighter light. The widely scattered families of 
the human race are coming closer together, and 
beginning to think and see more alike. When 
this work is complete, the present mission of spir- 
its will have been accomplished. 

What may lie beyond the present, which is 
never given to mortals or immortals to do, is not 
revealed. It is enough for all the children of earth 
here, or in the upper spheres, to know that all 
created beings, like all things else, are advancing 
— as fast as they are prepared — -for higher and still 
higher stages in the never-ending spheres of ex- 
istence. 

Said an advanced spirit to our last circle before 
this record closes : 

" Cherish the words we have given you. Fol- 
low the light you have, and new light will fall on 
your path. We have trod wearily the same road, 
but have gone through safely, and we pledge you 
our sacred assurance, that our birth-world shall 



THE TRIUMPH OF SPIRITUALISM. 1 8/ 

hereafter grow brighter and better as the years 

go by. Farewell dear ones — Farewell ! ! What 

nothing else has yet been done for our poor suf- 
fering earth, is to be done by the New Dispensa- 
hon— Spiritualism i " 



XXVII. 

SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 

This large and rapidly increasing body of per- 
sons, are being better understood, and conse- 
quently more respected. They have existed in 
all ages. In some countries they have suffered 
persecution and death. In others they have been 
regarded with the highest reverence, particularly 
among the Greeks and Romans, whose Oracles 
and Temples were specially dedicated to the busi- 
ness of revealing the future, and forecasting the 
fates of men and nations. For the most part ves- 
tal virgins, or other females, were chosen for this 
work, because of the acknowledged delicacy and 
susceptibility of their sex. Much superstition was 
mixed up with customs and beliefs from the Jews 
down to the witchcraft days of Puritan Salem. 

But the diffusion of light is substituting truth 



SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 1 89 

for error, and knowledge for blind belief. The 
relations between mortals and immortals are the 
same, Spiritualism is the same, and mediums are 
all the same ; but the whole system is vastly more 
developed, and infinitely better understood. 

This is due chiefly to mediums — by which term 
I designate those through whose organism — and 
for reasons we cannot explain — spirits are able to 
communicate with mortals. We have the facts 
by the million, and we accept them, and act upon 
them, just as we do on a million of other facts 
which the most learned cannot explain. 

If there were not pretended mediums, so-called, 
it would be very strange in a world so full of liars, 
counterfeiters, thieves, hypocrites, and the endless 
tribe of deceivers who waylay the unwary at every 
turn in life. 

But there is less danger from false mediums 
than from their brother and sister villains in other 
nefarious trades, from the church to the banking 
house — they are sure to be detected sooner or 
later — generally very quickly ; for every true me- 
dium, and every true spiritualist, must be their en- 
emies and detectives. 



190 SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 

There seems to be six classes of clearly defined 
Mediums, who are now chiefly engaged in spread- 
ing the knowledge of the truth of positive and as- 
sured intercommunication between us and our de- 
parted friends. 

1. The first class are Trance Mediums : Those 
who appear to lose their self-control, and in this 
state of somnambulence, or physical insensibility, 
speak strange words, as though they were mes- 
sages which seem, or profess to come from doubt- 
ful or incredible sources. And yet so many 
things of this kind are known, that they no lon- 
ger excite much painful surprise. On the con- 
trary, their words have afterward been found to 
convey most important intelligence. 

2. The Psychometrists, or soul readers, who can 
portray another's thoughts, whether present or 
absent, and convince either that they have the 
power to do this. This power has so often been 
displayed, that it has long ceased to be doubted 
among multitudes of the most careful of examin- 
ers. 

3. Inspirational Speakers. — The American ros- 
trum has, for many years, presented innumerable 



SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 19 1 

instances of lecturers who have, at unknown and 
unsuspected occasions, been asked to discourse 
on subjects of more or less importance, and who, 
to all appearances, could have had no time for 
preparation, and the discourses indicated a con- 
vincing, logical train of argument, and elevation 
of thought which would have honored the highest 
efforts of human genius. Hundreds of such ad- 
dresses have been pronounced before promiscuous 
assemblies, containing eminent orators, acute law- 
yers, and learned men, who had no words to ex- 
press their surprise and admiration. They could 
account for what they heard and saw, only by 
" something they could not understand." Spirit- 
ualists could understand it all, by tracing it to the 
agency of higher beings, who have in all past time 
breathed their inspiration to the leaders of our 
earth who have sought light and inspiration from 
higher sources. 

4. Another class are Physical Mediums, who 
seem to be but passive instruments through whom 
purely physical results are attained — as we use 
musical instruments, such as ordinary manuscript 
writing on paper, slates, artistic work on drawing 



192 SPIRIT MEDIUMS. 

paper, bells, pianos and guitars, etc. All done in 
presence of a medium, but not by the medium. 

5. Healing Mediums, by whom marvellous cures 
of bodily infirmities of every kind are effected, 
and those wonderful restorations to health and 
life, which have been in past time, and are still, 
accomplished. 

6. And, finally, the most astonishing of all dis- 
plays of spirit power on earth — the full form Ma- 
terializing Mediums. Here the most skeptical 
have to yield, for they see and test the demonstra- 
tions made not only to their intellect, but their 
bodily senses. 



XXVIII. 

LAST ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM THE 
SPHERES. 

One of the most astonishing and pleasing dis- 
plays of spirit power I ever witnessed, occurred 
between Christmas and New Years, 1883-84. 

It was strictly a private seance. Only myself 
and two gentlemen, scientists and personal friends 
— Dr. Gross and Professor J. Jay Watson — whom 
I had invited, were present. The doors were se- 
curely locked, the cabinet thoroughly examined, 
and the gas from the chandelier burning brightly. 
No possible precautions against deception or mis- 
takes were neglected, and all that happened had 
to pass the severest scrutiny. 

After some exquisite music on the organ by 
Professor Watson, the curtains opened, and in our 
full sight, five materialized spirits appeared. It 
13 



194 LAST SPIRIT DEMONSTRATIONS. 

was th.e first time that I had seen more than one 
spirit form appear at a time. These were all 
arrayed in flowing robes of pure white. They 
folded the curtains back, and closed them again, 
two or three times, hesitating, as if to gain strength, 
but came out again in clear view, and responding 
to our recognitions, returned their salutations and 
vanished into the invisible air. 

I tried to imagine what any sceptic could say 
who saw that sight ! 

Some time before, at another seance, spirit Hol- 
land had promised me (I dislike to use this egotis- 
tic pronoun so often) a surprise, and I felt that he 
had made good his pledge. But something more 
was to come. 

After the five spirits had vanished, the curtain 
again opened, and spirit Holland appeared with 
his daughter Angelica on his arm. This was her 
first materialization at this cabinet. She was a 
beautiful spirit, and looked quite as tall as her 
father. I was called to the cabinet and presented 
to her by her father. In my presence he placed 
his arm around her neck, and kissed her with the 
touching affection of a loving father. 



FINAL SPIRIT APPEARANCES. 195 

Dr. Gross was next invited to approach, and he 
remained in conversation for a while. 

After this scene passed, many of our dear friends 
appeared and talked with us individually ; all 
known and loved, and each one recognized and 
perfectly identified. 

One spirit in particular approached, and taking 
my arm walked with me all round the room. In 
passing by Dr. Gross, she placed her hand on his 
head, and addressing a few kind words to us, we 
walked back to the cabinet together, where she 
also vanished from our sight — not behind the cur- 
tain, but into air. 

Then came a spirit who seemed to be one I had 
known some years before, and who had, through 
another medium, identified herself as she alone 
could do. 

During my attendance at the seances , I heard 
mention made of a spirit who often appeared at 
the circle wearing, over a white dress, a long black 
scarf. This spirit afterwards proved to be my 
friend who committed suicide, as I was told, in 
consequence of an unhappy marriage. On this 
occasion she appeared all in white robes, and ra- 



196 A TOUCHING SCENE. 

diant with joy. She called me to her, and said, 
loud enough for every one to hear : 

" My good friend, if you had not been in Europe 
at the time, that sad event would not have taken 
place. But that black scarf has become a thing 
of the past with me. You will never see it on me 
again. Thanks ! thanks to the Great Father of all ! 
I have passed out of that terrible mistake of my 
earthly career, and now I can pass to a higher life." 

She then called up another person in the circle, 
and said : 

''See! Look! The black scarf is all gone; 
all things are now new with me. Bless you all. " 

She then passed into a soft clear light just as 
the curtain was falling. Spirit Holland appeared 
and said to us : 

" We do not intend to say anything about the 
spirit that has just gone ; but what a lesson it 
teaches to earth children ! " 

Among the most pleasing and satisfactory sur- 
prises that come to us, is intelligence from the 
Spirit World about the manner in which some of 
our friends are received on their arrival at their 
final home. 



WHAT THE IMMORTALS SAY. 197 

I use that word home, because it best conveys 
the idea which our friends give us of the rest 
which the weary and heavy-laden experience, 
when they fully know that they have escaped 
from all the uncertainties and vicissitudes of 
earth. 

They who have lived here, have gone through 
it all, and they know best how to tell the story 
of their life beyond. 

We often have occasion, in our earthly experi- 
ence, to remark the difference which the departure 
of one person and another excites. By simple in- 
tuition, all beholders felt alike as the body of 
the beloved Peter Cooper was borne by ; and not 
one in a million of spectators but felt that he, at 
least, had gone to the home of the good if there 
were any life hereafter. So, too, with all such men 
whose virtuous lives endeared them to the race. 

Among my contemporaries of this class, whose 
fame rests on the enduring basis of devotion to 
the good of humanity, few have left a better 
record than Dr. Marion Sims, the great Ameri- 
can surgeon. I knew and loved him. It so hap- 
pened that on the day while the bells were tolling 



I98 RECEPTION IN SPIRIT WORLD. 

for his funeral, at the seance we were privately 
holding at my own house, we received a startling 
and most affecting message of the manner in 
which the intelligence of his departure was re- 
ceived in the Spirit World ; and we were favored 
with a vivid description of his reception there. 

I can almost give the very words of the celes- 
tial message : — 

" More than one of the upper spheres had been 
prepared for his approach, and heard of his de- 
parture from earth with simultaneous joy. We all 
went out to meet him in groups of kindred spirits, 
bearing fruits, and floral offerings, and celestial 
music. We attended him to the home which his 
good deeds had built and embellished for him ; 
and after seeing his weary spirit reposing in charge 
of those who had known and loved him best on 
earth, our anthem of praise softened into silence 
as we withdrew." 



XXIX. 

PARTING WORDS TO MY FRIENDS, OR 
STRANGERS, WHO ARE NOT SPIRITUALISTS. 

I CANNOT know now, nor perhaps ever, what 
effect this litttle volume may have on the living, 
nor on those who may come after us. The future 
is in the hands of the Infinite Being, of whom I 
am but a loving child. I can only say that I have, 
in writing it, done my best to shed a ray of light 
on the clouded pathway of some who may, 
through it, be guided into clearer and more cheer- 
ful prospects of the endless future. 

That Future ! It is, after all, what oftenest ab- 
sorbs our most secret, our most sacred thoughts, 
especially when alone. The creeds, the theolo- 



200 PARTING WORDS. 

gies, the philosophies, the theories, and even the 
dreams, do not answer the questions we ask ; they 
do not satisfy the aspirations in which we so often 
indulge, and which we must cherish. We wonder ! 
What then can we do ? 

What then ? That question comes — it will come 
for an answer, and if we would find peace, we must 
get the response. 

Do the old oracles tell us ? Do their responses 
satisfy us ? Do we fall to sleep so soon, or so 
sweetly, as we should if we knew something more 
definite, more positive — something certain, real, 
absolutely sure about the future, as we should be 
glad to know ? 

No ! No ! I early trod that road. It gave 
me no certainty ; and it left me miserable — for I 
did not surely know where I was going. Faith 
did not satisfy me : / wa7ited knowledge. 

That knowledge I found, and it has been a 
source of so much comfort to me, that I would 
not part with it for all the wealth of the earth. 

I did not write this poor little book for Spirit- 
ualists alone — they know all the lessons I attempt 



PARTING WORDS. 201 

to teach ; but I wished to win some others to the 
CLEAR LIGHT which beams on us, only from the 
Spirit World. 

And so I dismiss this little work, to the care of 
the spirit friends through whose inspirations I 
feel that it has been written. 

Kate Irving. 



Finis. 



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